Counting On Rain
by becauseimbatman7
Summary: For some, sanity's a little bit harder to come by. Bella's in a mental hospital in Seattle and gets diagnosed with a serious illness. The doctors aren't all that they seem. But of all things, the rain keeps her going. NM-AU REPOST*
1. Chapter 1

**Don't own Twilight. Authors Note: YES, _THIS IS A REPOST._**

1.

His footsteps are coming down the hall, he's impossible...impossible to escape.

And I'm bitter, hating what I became after they left. At first I wanted to blame them for everything - after all, when someone tells you they love you and makes that vow of forever, you don't expect them to break that oath. You don't expect them to leave. Most importantly, you don't expect them to shatter you.

But he did, they all did.

Months went by. In fact it had been almost a year now - June 20th, his birthday. One little date can cause so much pain but the way we're all treated here is at most...disturbing. After Sam had discovered me in the woods that night I basically ceased living. Charlie dealt with it for a few months - he tried convincing me to seek therapy. He tried to get me to move back in with Renee. I refused both. At least in Washington there's rain. Funny, I used to hate the rain. Now I can't seem to get enough of it.

I'm not sure, it could be the memory of one baseball game during a thunderstorm or that the sun shining reminds me of those days when he wouldn't be able to join me in public. I hated when he was away and now? Now I would give anything for "away". At least then, he wouldn't be gone.

Charlie and Renee begged me to move to Florida and the next day, she and Phil were in a car accident, killed on impact. I couldn't bring myself to mourn. What kind of daughter doesn't mourn her own mother's death?

That was the final straw. Charlie sent me to a mental institution in Seattle. Right after I got here, I started to go mad. Cartoons floated around in the air, people that weren't really there talked to me and I heard voices.

I heard voices...

The TV made weird noises, I saw weird colors. I even managed to convince myself I was just a reflection or a dream - and the doctor put me on a drug called Zyprexa. At one point I asked him what was wrong with me; why I had to be on pills.

I'm a paranoid schizophrenic.

Now that I'm done with high school, instead of at college, I'm here. Some of the doctors are sexually abusive. As I said, I hear his footsteps and they're right outside the door.

Well, at least it might rain later.

Edward once referred to himself as a "sick, masochistic lion". I think at this point I could out-do that one. But I think about them a lot. I wonder about them - about what car Rose is working on, if Emmett has beaten Halo 3 yet, what kind of house Esme's modernizing. Does Jasper have another degree? Has Carlisle discovered the cure for cancer?

Mostly I think of the two unmentioned. Alice...Edward.

And as I wait here for the doctor, I don't cry. If I don't get my meds, I can see the black seep coming through the walls, the spiders crawl on my arms, and there aren't enough sedatives in the world to stop the screaming.

Edward was right all along, humans are weak. And besides, who would be possessed enough to stick around with a schizophrenic? The weakest of all the humans...

Maybe everything he ever said to me was a lie. He wasn't in love with me, he was just waiting to make me his next meal. Of course.

As I glance up I look out the window - no rain yet but the clouds are overcast. Suddenly the door swings open. "Great to see you again, Isabella." Dr Thompson shuts the door behind him and as he does a "check up", pulling my shirt up, he starts feeling my breasts. I squeeze my eyes tightly together and shut the rest of my senses down as much as I can.

I wish he was here.

Without warning, I hear the sound of water cascading down to the grass outside. My head snaps up again and I stare - it's finally raining. But I'm inside. Unable to clasp it or even touch it. Powerless to sense it. And an unwelcome hand is inching downward.


	2. Chapter 2

**DON'T OWN TWILIGHT. **

2.

_If I'm going to hell, I may as well do it thoroughly. _

Someone coughs and I look up to see John, one of the supervisors in the lunchroom. He nods down at me, "Bella."

I don't return the acknowledgement and my food tray is abruptly toppled to the floor. "Pretty clumsy there, you might want to pick that up - Dr. Thompson isn't good with messes you know."

I clench my teeth, forcing a nod back to him. Tears prickle at my eyes but I blink them fiercely until they are swallowed to the back of my throat. "Yeah, I'll get it."

"What was that?"

Sighing, I glare at him. "Yes, sir."

He pats my head condescendingly before walking away. I collect the plastic fork and spoon in my hand and that's when I notice that the plate holding my food is shattered, all over the floor. There's food everywhere.

Just as I'm about to get up for a garbage can and rag, a pair of huge fluffy slippers come into my view - they appear to be grizzly bear ones due to the claws on the end of each toe. A face floats down in front of me and a big olive toned man stares into my vision. Dreadlocks hang from the sides of his round face - they remind me of confetti. "You all right?"

Incoherent blinks cloud me a couple times and then I squeak out a "yes". The man smiles and offers his hand to me and I take it, the feeling of warmth flowing through my fingers. Something about his demeanor isn't threatening at all. Most men frighten me.

"I'm Mel Orwell," he tells me as he helps me to my feet. I try to stifle the giggle but it ends up coming out in a snort.

"Your name is Orwell?"

"Yeah, but no - I'm not related to the brilliant George." His face breaks out into a goofy grin. "But people usually call me Confetti."

"Cool. I can see why, the hair." We both laugh.

"You have Brown Eyes, kinda like that song by Van Morrison."

"I like _Golden Autumn Day_, personally." Smirking at him, I suddenly hear tapping on the rooftop. Excitement fills me and I almost forget about the mess but he notices.

"Let's get this cleaned up."

"Dr. Thompson won't like that."

"He's your doctor?"

"Yeah," I reply bitterly.

"All the more reason for me to help then," he chuckles humorlessly. "Don't call that guy a doctor - that's a title you earn." We finish cleaning up and I race outside with him behind me, basking in the wetness. I could swear I hear a baseball game in the distance.


	3. Chapter 3

**Don't own Twilight.**

3.

The rain falls on our faces as we lay in the grass and I crook my head to side, staring at him.

"What?"

"Nothing," I turn away quickly.

"No, what are you staring at. It's okay."

Is it making him uncomfortable? "I'm trying to decide if you're really here or not."

"Why would you ask if I'm real?" His eyebrow furrows.

He could call me crazy and never want to talk again but I shake my head. "You better not make fun of me." I try to turn my attention back to the sky, letting the moisture graze my face. I want to drown in the feeling of it.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours..."

I pull my palms lazily up to my face and sigh into them. "You'll think it's pathetic."

"I'll decide my own opinion, thanks," he retorts.

"I study him for a minute, a war raging inside. "Someone I loved...left."

"Oh," the answer is barely a whisper. The only sounds I hear now are the waving of the trees and pats of water droplets melting down, meeting like silk with the grass. I pick up a piece and twirl it in my fingers. Confetti's eyes are closed and he suddenly looks back at me. "You're in this place because someone left you?"

"Well, I'm sick. Actually I have what's called schizophrenia. I see things that aren't there, hear voices, have delusions." My voice is hollow, even to me.

Without missing a beat, he replies, "Suicide attempt. Someone I loved passed away."

"You seem so upbeat though."

" 'A man who is of sound mind is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.' "

"Paul Valery?"

"That's right," he smiles.

"Tell me another one," I plead.

He seems to stare past me as he relents, " 'God has given you one face and you make yourself another.' "

"Hamlet," I muse easily. "Let me try."

" 'Stand up and walk out of your history.' "

"Not familiar with that one," he admits.

"Phil McGraw, though I have no idea who he is, I just liked it."

"You know - the way you phrase it is kinda sad." He ruffles my hair.

I think of another quote, one that I know he won't recognize. "I decided as long as I was going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly." Even though he left, even though I wasn't quite enough to keep him.

The next thing he says throws me for a loop. "Don't dwell on someone who's not worth your time. They don't belong on a pedestal, whoever they are."

"How did you -"

"How did I guess? I don't know, you just said someone left you -"

"No, someone I loved died. They're two different things. Think about it, 'If you love someone, let them go, if they return they were always yours. If they don't they never were.'"

He helps me up - my legs asleep from sitting on the ground. But it is my fault they left - I'm human, I'm sick. I'm nothing.

It dawns on me that I'm wasting my time here because vampires don't exist, which means...Edward never did. None of them do. Maybe I'm just a dream, maybe this whole thing is just another dream made up in my head.

The doctors aren't real and if they are, they're just helping me. John is frustrated at me because I'm making things harder for them. Confetti's a figment of my imagination that the people in the TV are broadcasting - they're evil. They want to hack into my brain.

_It will be as though I never existed..._

And when I picture that face, my insides plummet. I feel bile rising in my throat and the hallucination is blurring in front of me, calling and shouting things I can't hear. Everything shuts down - my mind protecting itself, swallowing me in its shell.

Alice swims before me and Emmett, even Rose. White coats surround me and I throw my hands out to grab onto something. Right as the blue spots cloud my sight, I vomit on a pair of shoes.

_It will be as though I never existed..._

Then, there's nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Don't own Twilight.**

4.

I wake up groggy and delirious. My eyes wander over the cracks in the walls and up to the window - the sun shining in my eyes as I watch the splinters of the vivid dawn.

The door unlocks and John comes in, but he doesn't say anything. For a second I begin to hope he'll just leave. "Let's go."

I throw the covers back and practically skate out of the room, down the hallway. Of course I remember the revelation I had yesterday and it makes me numb. I make my way to the doctor's office and the door swings open before I can even knock. "Come in, Isabella."

I hesitate because something in my head is screaming for me to get away from him...that voice. I know that voice. "Is this a joke, I haven't heard that voice in nine months..." I say, the shock washing away.

"I don't hear any voices, Isabella." The voice in my head snarls and I jump.

From the corner, John steps forward and unzips his pants. Now I know why he's here.

Crying makes one weak, crying is a human weakness - no tears. No tears will stain this mask. I lay in the corner, away from my bed. Far and away from everything.

The weeping sobs bounce off the walls of my brain and I jump up. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! You don't fucking exist - you thought you could come into my life and just disappear into thin air? I'm here because of you! You don't even fucking care - you don't exist!"

_I love you..._

"Leave me, that's what you do best." A quote comes to me then, 'There are wrongs which even the grave does not bury.'

"Harriet Ann Jacobs," I whisper to myself.

Confetti managed to talk me into invading the kitchen in the middle of the night. "Flashlight!" He barks in a hush. Sighing, I retrieve it from the handbag we snatched from a Janitor's closet earlier. He mumbles something about pickles.

"You think I would come all this way for pickles?" I raise my eyebrow.

"No, because they're mine. Besides, are you telling me you wouldn't go to all this trouble for pickles?"

"I can think of something better, like chocolate."

_Blood..._

A shiver runs down my spine and I whip around, looking for the person who's talking. "Leave me alone," I sigh angrily.

"Something inside your head?"

"Yeah."

He looks to me, "You have been taking your pills, haven't you?"

"My doctor...he doesn't always give them to me," I answer.

The tone his voice takes is murderous. "He wouldn't give you your meds? I just can't believe there's someone out there filled with that kind of evil."

" 'I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.'"

"Anne Frank." He whirls back to the lock and I steady my hold on the flashlight as something clicks and the door swings open, revealing the kitchen. God, I miss cooking.

"Really, I don't know what's better than pickles," I laugh as he races to the fridge and opens it.

"Know what you want," he tells me abruptly.

"What?"

"You seem so unsure of yourself, as though you don't know what you want. You should be sure of yourself, confident. You have to be able to take your ideas and put them to action instead of storing all that passion away for nothing. Don't doubt yourself over anything."

"You sound like a motivational speaker, did you come out of some movie or something?" Laughing, I shake my head and decide on toast and scrambled eggs. Heading to the stove I turn the burner on.

" 'Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.' "

"Voltaire. 'Our distrust is very expensive."

"Emerson - although he hardly counts, all he talked about was how pretty the woods are," I argue.

"There is some truth in beauty," Confetti replies.

I'll believe that when I see it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Don't own Twilight. **

5.

Leaning against the window sill in the cafeteria, I think there's a girl on the other side of the window, looking in at me. She stares - a dull ache in her eye. Her fingers look like white spiders, splayed and clinging to anything they can hold to. There are red rims around the edges, evidence that she's been crying.

Behind the girl sits a man with a mustache in the shape of a comb. It's dark brown with a little white and gray roping their way through the dark. The man also looks tired, rings etched around his own eyes. The girl had those eyes once. Though, in the recent months she tosses and turns - fearing the black seep that comes from the walls and the red eyes. They have been white-washed into the translucent color they are now. Always bloodshot, stained with crimson weaves that web their way on the outer sclera.

"Bells," the man behind the glass states with a sigh.

Is her name Bella too? My mouth widens in shock and so does hers, as we both blink a few times. "Bella," comes out in more of a whisper this time and I turn away to give them privacy - but when I glance up I come face to face with the same man from the glass.

"Who are you?" I breathe.

"Bella please, it's me. It's Dad."

Something in my head clicks like a lock turning in a huge wooden door and I try to push at the familiarity of the memory oozing out of the corners of my mind. It's stuck - the man is wearing a uniform.

I know this.

_"Daddy, look! I caught one," the little girl holds the fishhook up to her father's face as though it's some kind of trophy. "It's so slimy." She wrinkles her nose up at the small fish, avoiding staring directly at it for fear that the glazed over black eyeball will wink at her._

_Her father takes the hook from her and plucks it out of the rubbery skin. He then proceeds to toss the fish in a bucket near them. It makes a flopping sound and the man grins at his daughter. "God job, Bells. See? Fishing isn't so bad."_

The door finally caves in and the memory flings itself out in full force, waking me up and dragging me back. I stand and walk around the table, throwing myself at Charlie. "Dad," I croak out, trying to apologize for my blind lapse.

He leans in and gives me a half-sided hug. "It's just the disease, Bells, it's just the disease. So...how are things?" Charlie mumbles out, trying to make things less awkward.

"Fine," I lie - which has become much easier than it used to be.

"You know, your hair looks exactly like your mom's when -"

"Dad, don't."

"It was never your fault, you know. No one knows when their time is up, she -"

"Is that what you think? That it's my fault?"

"No I just -"

"Dad, I didn't...I didn't do anything when she died. I didn't even mourn. You know what the last thing I told her was?" I hiss over the table.

I'm sure I'm making a scene but I don't care. Charlie looks over his shoulder to make sure no one is watching us or listening in.

It may sound strange, but it's almost like a comfort to know that he stays away - it's better this way. Defense, and I suppose I couldn't handle watching him drive everyday to see me, sheltered from the world and suffering in this dark abyss. He might break down himself. I can't lose him too.

"What? What was the last thing you said? I'm pretty sure thinking about it isn't going to help anything. Dr. Thompson -"

"He's not a doctor," I growl.

Charlie looks at me sternly. "Yes, he is Bells. And you should address him as such."

"Fine," I lie again easily. He may not know the truth, but he forced me into this hell hole to begin with. Getting up, I start for the exit. "I told her I didn't need her to take care of me."

"Bella!"

"What?" I whirl, trying to figure out what the world wants from me. It's so tiring, existing without purpose from day to day.

"Have you at least heard anything from the Cullens?"

"Why would I care about a bunch of people who don't exist?"

"What are you talking about? Of course the Cullens exist."

"No, Dad. Vampires aren't real."

"Vampires? Hey what -"

"The Cullens I knew wouldn't have left anyway."

"Don't shut everything down, Bella. You're not a robot!"

"Yeah well, I'm not exactly a person either, am I?"

He looks at me confused, "Who told you that?"

"The man you told me to call doctor. I'm not a robot - just a shell with an illness. You want me to live normally? I'm doing it - I'm living the only way I know how." Tears stream down my face and into my hair. Keeping myself together as I clutch my sides, I wonder, if the truth is all I have now then why does it wrap me in chains? If the truth sets me free, shouldn't I feel liberated? Instead I'm weighed down by sex, madness and drugs. "I'm not going to be miserable to be stable like you. I'm going to be hollow."

A low blow, ripping him into shreds like a ribbon falling to the floor at one's feet. Instead of waitng for a reply, I sin the way I did with Renee. I leave him - I hit and run. I let the venom spread; paralyzing the mouse.

**Alice's POV**

Dropping to my knees on the pavement, it hits me like a semi-truck. White walls surrounding her, people drowning in sheets and tubes in their beds. Some are being dragged to a room with an electro-shock system -screaming for help because they know what's coming.

She sits in a corner, the visions flipping and zooming by like some sort of static TV set. The soft curls of her coconut hair fall everywhere and then she turns and smiles vacantly at some man I don't recognize. They share music tastes and talk about pickles and philosophy.

Jasper's panicked, calling my name over and over but I ignore him. This is the first time I have seen her in months, ages. It's forcing its way through the tight lid I screwed on the jar of our memories. All because of Edward. The damn is broken.

But I throw my arm out to Jasper as the next thing I see shakes me so deeply within. A doctor leans over her naked form in his office. Not a regular physical but something else, something dirty and wrong. The curtain behind my eyes closes off and I fall the rest of the way to the ground, panting for breath as if I were human and running for miles.

They kneel in front of me, concern on their faces. Emmett and Rose at my sides, and Jasper in front of me asking what on earth could I have seen to cause such a reflex. I struggle on my feet and stare my husband in the eyes.

"Bella, something's wrong. We need to get to Seattle, now."


	6. Chapter 6

**Don't own Twilight. **

6.

The fog coats my face in light, wet droplets as I lay on my stomach watching the dawn rise progressively through the trees and behind the edges of clouds. It seems as though its been ages since I last experienced this. A shard of a ray touches a flower in front of me and I catch a glimpse of the opening bud breaking forth to reveal its inside pollen.

Confetti lays next to me, fast asleep. He had spent the whole night bragging about how he could stay up all night. He seems so peaceful as though nothing in the world can touch him and for just a moment, I envy him for the shroud of darkness and ease that surrounds him - cutting everything away. It's as if nothing and no one can touch him.

But I know better. People hide themselves away for protection, to guard the scars on their own souls. Could you bring yourself back after losing a loved one, or is it selfish to want to move on? Renee's face comes into view and a wetness fills my eyes. Wiping it away, my eyes land on a small leaf in the distance that's covered with dew. One tiny spec glides to the brink and teeters there, as if asking permission to drop to the ground below.

"How long was I out?" Confetti speaks up beside me.

"About two hours," I turn back to the leaf. The drip of water is still teetering on the edge. "Did you ever cry over the person who died?"

"No," his voice is like steel.

"Why not?"

His eyes bore into mine and his answer breaks my heart just a little more. "Because I don't want him to see me cry."

Already, I know who he's talking about. In the corner of my eye, the water drops to the dirt below.

**Alice's POV**

"When he gets here, I'm going to kill him myself," I tell Carlisle, who has just gotten off the phone with Edward. I can't remember the last time I was this angry, this shaken. And we had allowed this. We had let Edward dictate all our actions concerning Bella for the last year.

Jasper sends me calming waves but it's not really helping. Instead it feeds as fuel to my fire. Carlisle looks at me, sad and just...defeated. Esme has been leaning against him, sobbing dryly for the last hour, and Rose has yet to say anything. Emmett stands outside, still as stone.

"Honey, you need to relax -blaming Edward isn't going to help anything," Jasper says soothingly in my ear. But I snap.

"Jazz, she's in a mental institution - I can't just let him off the hook, not for this one. He may not have put her there but its cause and effect. The doctors there are abusing her," my voice breaks and Jasper growls, rubbing circles on my back. My eyes dart to another sobbing noise in the corner, Rose.

Emmett suddenly comes stomping into the house, "When's the self-righteous prick going to be here?"

"He's catching the next flight out, he should be here in about 3 hours."

"What did you tell him, Carlisle? Did you tell him?" Esme murmurs into his shirt.

"I didn't tell him anything. We don't even know why she's there to begin with - I just told him that this was a matter of family emergency."

Exactly three hours later, Edward steps into the room. He looks like hell - good. "What is it this time?" He glares at Carlisle who is rehearsing something in his head along with the rest of us. Edward turns to me and snarls. _"Alice."_

"Try me - you're lucky I haven't ripped you into shreds yet, Edward," I hiss back, my voice breaking.

"I told you not to look!"

"I don't give a god-damn thing about what you might have told me anymore! I _didn't _look, it seeped through and we should all be grateful that it did," I leap to my feet, shooting daggers into his eyes. "Do you wish to know what happened since we left? Did you think by killing Victoria, she would be safe and nothing else would come into play? No, Edward. I'm done obeying your wishes - as soon as we're done here, I'm flying to Seattle. We might already be too late to fix what you insisted we toss aside."

Edward snarls again, "Leave her, Alice. I'll force you to stay if I have to."

Jasper abruptly is in front of me. "The hell you will. If you stop Alice now, you'll have proven that you never loved Bella to begin with."

Edward resists, and I stop chanting the rhymes in my head, conjuring up the image to him. He's on the floor in seconds choking out her name, shrieking, "Bella," as he tears and scrapes at the floorboards below him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Don't own Twilight. **

7.

I feel betrayed for him. Burned. I struggle to my feet because this is all unraveling so fast - faster than I can handle. "So you knew? You knew that he was her doctor - that he was-"

"No." Confetti shakes his head fiercely. "I knew he was her doctor, I didn't know that he was a monster."

The truth of this hospital, this place slams against my chest and molds me into the ground, and the velocity of it might just crush me. Confetti pulls himself off the ground and I can barely hear the grass crunch beneath his feet as he steps toward me. "I didn't know, I swear I didn't know."

"How could you not know, aren't you a patient here?"Tremors flex through my voice, so much that I almost don't recognize it.

"Not always, there was a time when I wasn't here just the same as you."

"So get it out then." Waving a hand for him to continue, I return to sitting in the grass with my elbows perched up on my knees as I cross my legs.

He copies my actions but doesn't meet my gaze, staring off into the distance like a film is playing on a screen in front of him. "Ila was my wife, we were married for six years before she died. We had a good life but nothing fancy - most of the time just barely squeaking by to make ends meet. That was our thing, our joke, that we couldn't get anywhere because the man was keeping us down. She painted, people and landscapes. I was the dancing idiot," he laughs, "She used to love my impression of the moonwalk."

A corner of my mouth twitches up into a smirk.

"We were happy though. I came home from work one day to find her ecstatic - turned out we were due to have a baby. Every day after I went to work, whistling show-tunes and waving to strangers."

"Did she have...a miscarriage or something?" I say quietly.

"No, she didn't - and this is going to sound horrible but I wish she had. I guess I figure that if that were the case, she wouldn't have ended up here. No - she had issues -much like yours. Though hers was a problem called Dissociative Identity disorder."

"Like multiple personalities?"

"Yeah, at first it wasn't obvious. She wasn't even diagnosed until about three months after we found out about the baby."

"So she didn't show any signs before that? At all?"

"She had a little, we were looking into it - but her alter ego would only show itself every so often. If she was stressed out it could trigger something...it's my fault really. There were so many signs. So many switches...so many frames to her mind. She had a hard time remembering things, she would go somewhere and then call me, not knowing how she had even gotten there to begin with. The first time, it was nothing, so I dropped it. But the second time we went in - she told me she had been hearing voices."

He lets a tear slide down his cheek finally.

"Tell me, what happened then?"

"We thought we could handle it. Even when the disorder was put out on the table, we thought with the right treatment she would get better and still be able to be a good mom, I knew she would. I knew she could have handled it.

"Well, when she was diagnosed I recall her telling me that reality bites. We couldn't have her on meds because of the baby so they wanted us to try psychotherapy and even some hypnosis. I thought maybe with the treatment, we could eventually kill off the other...part of her."

Fear throbs in my chest, pumping the adrenaline through my veins and the hairs on the back of my neck prick out at attention - holding off the impending knee-jerk reaction to grab onto the grass below me and tear it out in chunks.

" ' There are moments when, even to the sober eye of reason, the world of our sad humanity must assume the aspect of Hell.' "

"Edgar Allen Poe," I whisper.

His breath is labored as he cries freely now. "I came home...she was in hysterics on the floor, covered in blood. Mrs. Hyde was out and she had a pair of scissors in her hand." He hiccups and we both fall silent for a few moments before he finally tells me, "She was a walking shell afterwards. The doctor thought she needed to come here so she could get the proper treatment. It wasn't even a month later when she died."

"How would she have taken her own life?"

"She didn't take her own life, she underwent electro-shock therapy. The voltage was set too high across her chest and she died. I'm here because I tried to kill myself - on suspension from the force for it. But that's okay, I can gather as much dirt on that motherfucker as possible."

I nod my head, reality does bite.


	8. Chapter 8

Don't own Twilight.

8.

**Alice's POV **

The clouds out the window levitate in layers and as the sun peaks out in the distance I glance down to watch the rays dance across my skin. Mesmerized by the glittering dust that forms, I think back to Bella's 18th birthday and curse the day I was turned. Jasper turns and takes my hand in his, squeezing softly. Visions have been presenting themselves more often lately, but these are not of the future.

_A small hand takes mine, rubbing circles back and forth across the surface. I look up into a pair of gray eyes and my lips curve into a smile. "Hi, Cynthia." My voice doesn't waver - instead high and cheery. Keeping the tears at bay is easy when you have a younger sister._

_"Mommy says you're sick, Alice, that's why you have to stay here." I can't argue - what could I say to tell her otherwise? Normal people don't see what I see, they don't understand the things I do. She looks away to the door and then back again. "You're not that sick, right?"_

_"No of course not, I just need to have the doctor's look at a few things."_

_"How long will it take?"_

_"Just a little while, I promise." My voice has lowered to a whisper but it doesn't crack - and suddenly the door is open with my mother walking in. Complete opposites, she's silent and I'm silly. _

_"Come on, Cynthia. It's time - give your sister a hug." The little girl obeys and I return her hug fiercely. Tears spring from my eyes, one falling silently down my cheek. "I love you," I tell her. "Please, come see me again soon."_

_As she pulls away, she asks, "You won't stay here will you? You won't forget about us? Mommy said you might forget us."_

_I gasp, "No honey, I could never forget you."_

_Her hands fall limply to her sides as our mom calls her again. I wait patiently on the bed while they walk out the door - locking it behind them. Standing, I hop over to look out the tiny window of the white door and watch as they walk down the hallway. A strange feeling of foreboding showers over me, as though I know this is the last time I will see them._

My eyes snap open and I stare into the face of my husband - feelings of his uneasiness wash over me along with the rest of them. Turning, I swallow and peek at the shock I know will be in Edward's face. My sister - I had forgotten. I had forgotten about her for so long. Edward meets my gaze, his eyes glassy with remorse.

"Alice, what did you see?" Jasper asks, panicked again. The rest of them wait for me to say something but the problem is I'm stuck - between a rock and a hard place, unable to give them my memories.

_Edward, you have to tell them something, please. _

He nods, turning to Carlisle. "She had a memory - not a vision of the future. Something from her human life." His tone is dry, dead - no music in his voice.

"Well you have been researching, Did you just mix it up with something else? Something in the newspaper?" He's anxious, I know he doesn't want to see me hurt.

"No, this was different...I knew this. It was familiar."

And it had been, it had been like walking backwards or rewinding through footsteps in the snow. You find yourself in the middle of a wood only to find that the color of the leaves have changed from that brilliant hue of green into a dull and fading orange.

"Alice," Jasper sighs, pulling me into his lap and rocking us back and forth. My eyes are glazed over with tears that will never fall. I had forgotten my own sister - what's more, I had forgotten Bella too.

I had, Edward had, we all had.

**Bella's POV**

Thompson warned me about going to bed hours ago. But it's raining. Spinning around, my feet are lathered in grass stains and they look like small fingerprints put there by the hands of children. Grasshoppers ring in the distance - the chant of their fiddle legs blurring in with my delusions.

The bright lights of the city splash colors in the background and I stop wondering if I'm here because car horns honk and blow impatiently along with the backdrop. My neck whips to the sky, asking God for just one more drop of his tears. They come - they come pouring down in silver, whites and grays. The moon sizzles across some giving them the distinct look of pearls.

For just one moment, I can stop caring. The world drops from under me and I fall laughing in the soft grass. There is no illness, there is no sex, there is no reality.

_"My name is Edward Cullen."_

_"I'm tired of trying to stay away from you, Bella."_

_"That blue looks lovely with your skin. "_

_"If I could dream at all, it would be about you."_

I watch the moon darken under mist and decide that the hallucinations aren't that bad. My mind gave me something beautiful, if only for a while. It might of been a lie, but it was the most wonderful lie I have ever produced.

Suddenly I panic as I hear the sound of footsteps coming near. The face of Confetti is abruptly overhead and I relax. "Whatcha' doing?" He asks.

"Breaking the rules," I smirk and he grins, bumping fists with me.

"Oh yeah? Who's rules?"

"You know whose. Thompson says I'm _just a disease_."

"This is coming from a guy who killed my wife. Ila, may have been sick but she was human to the bone. And I for one refuse to believe that just because I'm sick that it cancels out my humanity."

Lifting myself up, I smile. _" 'What, you think you're crazy or something? Well you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out walkin' around on the streets and that's it!'" _

"One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." He moves closer to me and says, "You know Immanuel Kant -"

But I cut him off as I hug him for dear life - he's all I have now.

And this time, that's enough.

**Alice's POV**

"Edward, get it together, dude," Emmett states solemnly. Edward hasn't spoken a word since my recollection. "Bella's in a bad place right now."

The plane is about to land and I haven't seen any vision of her - this bothers me. It's almost as if some jigsaw puzzle piece is misplaced. A flicker comes and goes but I have yet to determine what it means. The signs all seem to spell her forgetting us, or that maybe she's undecided about whether we were ever real to begin with.

Oh God...no.

Edward's attention snaps to me, staring intently as he silently pleads with his eyes for reassurance. For once, I don't have the power to give it to him.

"Carlisle?"

"Yes?" He had called into Seattle before we left to try connecting answers together. What had put Bella in the hospital in the first place?

"What's wrong with her?" Edward demands. "Why would she be in some place that twisted to begin with?" He's shaking and Jasper emits some relaxation.

Carlisle turns, looking at each of us carefully. "I'm going to put this bluntly. Technically, what I have to say is confidential. " He fiddles with some papers in his hands. "I called Chief Swan."

Like so many other times, I fall down the rabbit hole and stumble across it myself - seconds before he utters the words. Sometimes the truth weaves itself and you have to dig a little deeper. Sometimes, the truth is a beast itself.

_Paranoid Schizophrenia..._

Edward slumps over, biting his hands so he doesn't scream. Emmett sits beside him, glaring up at Carlisle and now me. "Answer the question."

"It's a mental disorder - most of you might know it as Paranoid Schizophrenia."

"She sees things that aren't there?" Jasper asks.

"Essentially yes, but there's a lot more to it than that. The person suffers hallucinations that can be visual or auditory. There are also delusions - sometimes the person can become suspicious of the people around them, hence the first part of the name. Disorganized thoughts are common - the person often can't hold a normal conversation and it can often result in isolation.

"One of the biggest signs are the emotional aspects - anger and aggression as well as apathy. The person stops caring about basically everything, even hygiene. The results of all these things can lead to suicidal thoughts, " he pauses for a second to comfort Esme and then looks back to the rest of us, "This is complicated - if we go in that place and bring Bella home with us, there's no going back - there's always the option of asking them to transfer her to another facility."

Edward's stare is frozen, haunted. "I can't be away from her again - it doesn't matter if she's sick."

"I realize that, son but Bella's going to be different. She might not even be the same as the way we left her, we're going to have to have patience - tons of it. Not just with the illness, she's obviously now been through serious emotional trauma."

A hoarse cry comes from the corner, "Bella's going home with us, Carlisle."

"You know, you're kind of beautiful for a heartless shrew, babe," Emmett says, standing and kissing her on the cheek.

Bella would have loved that. Edward's eyes dart to and from mine before we feel the jiggling of the plane as it plunges toward the runway. "He's really suffering, Alice. More than he lets on," Jasper mutters to me.

I know he is. The agony plunges deeper than being licked through with the fire of venom. Madness isn't a rabbit hole, it's a snake pit. I don't want to drop in because that emotion of being looked down upon with disdain is too familiar. Closing my eyes, my mother's face swims before them.

**Bella's POV**

"Isabella, you have visitors."

Walking in a daze behind John, I cringe away from the red eyes in the glass windows surrounding me and step over the black seep pooling across the floor. I wonder if Confetti works for the FBI and they're gathering information on me. Pushing that thought out of my head, I sway a bit and continue walking.

Who would be here for me? Charlie won't come, surely. Not after last time. And no one from high school would have came, not even Newton. John steps aside when we reach the visitation area and when I look up, there are seven inhumanly marvelous faces fixed back on mine. Hyperventilating, I gasp and lean over.

"Isabella, we've been through this - there's no such thing as a vampire."

It's all in my head, just a lie.

One that I can't handle being a part of again, no matter how beautiful.


	9. Chapter 9

Don't own Twilight.

9.

**Alice's POV**

It's been ten minutes since we arrived at the hospital and I'm gazing around at the plain white walls, commenting to Esme on the lack of color. Jasper sits restless beside me, bouncing his leg up and down - I don't remember seeing him this antsy before.

"Are you alright?" I ask, laying a hand on his.

"I can only feel confusion and despair in here," he whispers back.

Carlisle leans forward and looks to me, "When will Charlie be here?"

"In about 20 seconds he's going to walk through the front door. He's not going to be thrilled to see us, let alone Edward," I warn, my eyes glancing over to the broken man sitting across from me. Rose suddenly lifts her head off Emmett's shoulder , leans in and tells me in a deadly soft voice, "The doctor is mine."

"No, no. You've had your revenge - it time for the woman who's been in the mental health system before to have a go. Esme, would you like to help?"

She shakes her head in return - her and Carlisle, never a thirst for vengeance. Truthfully, I never thought I would be the one for it either but with the memories of my sister...with Bella. Every fresh recollection is like a stab and I haven't bled in 80 years but the pulsing ache bubbles up so easily - like riding a bicycle: once you learn you never forget.

The door swings open and Chief Swan waltzes in, right on time. Carlisle gets up and glides over to him - discussing Bella in an undertone - but we all hear them.

"Where's the boy, Carlisle? This whole thing started with him leaving her."

"Charlie, she would have been diagnosed with it had we left or stayed, you know that. I understand this hasn't been easy for you...if we had known, we would have come much sooner."

Charlie nods, sighing. "I'm not sure how this is going to work, Carlisle. Washington has laws about this kinda thing, voluntary submission, all that. If the doctor thinks she needs to stay there's not much we can do. We may need a court order or something."

"I've already gone through everything we need," Carlisle assures him. He pauses for a second before dropping his voice even lower. "I realize we may not be on the best of terms right now, Charlie. But we all love Bella and after discussing it with my wife, I wanted to ask if you would allow Bella to stay with us for a while. I would take over as her primary doctor and even be able to get in touch with a better psychiatrist than the ones here.

"I know she's in a fragile state right now and you're worried, you would want someone to make sure she took her medication and such, but with all due respect that's why we feel it would be best this way. I would be able to monitor her and make sure she's very comfortable. Our kids would also like her there - they were all close before the move and I know Alice would especially appreciate having her around."

Charlie glances toward me and I smile as warmly as I can under the circumstances. "Yeah, that Alice is a good kid." He shuffles his feet a bit then and looks to Carlisle directly. "And Edward? I'm pretty sure the stress alone of having him nearby wouldn't help. "

"My son is...having a difficult time with all of this, he -"

Edward stands up and sulks over to Charlie and Carlisle with the rest of us watching solemnly. This isn't quite the moment of truth...but it's close.

"You better tell the boy to sit his ass down again before I punch him, Carlisle." Charlie's face floods with a beet red tinge and he turns to stare out the window.

"Chief Swan, I don't deserve anyone's forgiveness for what I did - especially not yours or Bella's," Edward starts.

"He better have a damn good speech prepared, I may have to leave, Alice," Jasper says.

Charlie whirls on Edward, his mustache ruffling a bit. "That's it? That's what you have to say after all this time? Son, help me understand something there. You spend Bella's birthday celebrating with her and then you bring her back to the house and spend the next night all funny?"

Edward's eyebrow's raise an inch.

"Oh yeah, I could tell you were acting weird - remember, I'm a cop. Bella may have bought it but I sure as hell didn't. Was it too much cake or something?" Emmett chortles across from me. "_And then_," he thunders, pointing a finger close to Edward's nose, "_You left her in the woods, alone_!"

Edward shakes, crying on the inside all the streams that will never travel the distance down his face.

"Do you know what it was like, watching her roam around on her feet as nothing more than a corpse? I figured the girl would snap out of it! But you know what, Edward? She never did, and the last time she talked to me I found out she beats herself up for her mom's car accident! I thought bringing her to this place might bring her some kind of peace. Now here you are -" He doesn't finish the last thought as he rubs at his eyes. "The worst part is, we found out there really is something wrong." Charlie glares at his feet as he murmurs the last part, "And I can't fix it."

Carlisle falsely clears his throat. "Charlie, Edward won't be responsible for Bella. We all want to help her. Beside's you're going to need help with this. You can't expect to run out of the house on a night call while Bella is having an episode. This is a fulltime deal - you'll need fulltime help."

And finally, something inside Edward breaks, coming to a boiling point. "Chief Swan, I am truly sorry for the way I treated Bella, I'm not worthy of her and I know it. But I swear that I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to her. If she tells me to leave, it will be more than I deserve."

"You're damn straight it will be," Charlie affirms. "Frankly Edward, I don't like you. I don't like anything about you, but you're not my main concern right now - Bella is." He turns back to Carlisle. "I'm not keen on Bella staying with your family, quite honestly. But I don't know what else to do. I'm not so sure about this place either, some of the things Bella has said...the way she acts...it's not right."

Suddenly a tall security guard comes around the corner. Everyone's head jerks up and we stand to see what he has to say. Stepping aside, the man starts to look over some paperwork on the counter and I gasp, seeing who is behind him. My eyes fill with venom.

Bella.

She gazes up, wonder and heartbreak veiling her as she leans over.

"Isabella, we've been through this. There's no such thing as a vampire."

_Well that's too bad you don't believe in them, you're about to meet some. _

Edward glances at me out of the corner of his eye - he's not about to get in my way, not this time.

**Bella's POV**

No one moves. A thread pops loose in my brain and I feel like a ragdoll whose stitches are weaving their way out of the carefully crisscrossed pattern that holds it together. All my greatest joys and all my greatest fears are standing stone silent on the opposite end of the room. I take each face in like a breath of air.

Carlisle nods back at me reassuringly.

Esme looks at me with glassy eyes.

Rosalie leans against her husband, her lips twitching up into a small curve.

Emmett rocks a bit on his feet, grinning widely at me.

Jasper measures me up as he places a hand on his wife's shoulder - ridden with a guilt he can't seem to toss aside.

Alice stares into my eyes - a small light in her own, faded, but there just the same. Sadness surrounds her. My hand twitches, aching to touch her. But how do I know? How do I know she won't vanish into mist?

One more ghost, one more demon to confront. As luck would have it he is the biggest fear, and joy of them all. _Edward Cullen_...a voice taunts. My heart races inside my chest - so much that I can feel it in my stomach and even my feet. A tear slides down my cheek and I shuffle my feet to take him in.

_"If I could dream at all, it would be about you..." _

Pain, agony, despair - thousands of emotions etch themselves in his amber eyes. The angel is still breath-taking, even with wilted wings. I take a step forward, because even after all of this, even after Heaven and Hell and everything in between he makes me feel _alive. _He throws everything else in the background. The smile that comes to my face isn't forced but easy and genuine. And the answering smile I get is radiant.

But with a small pin drop, Edward turns to someone else. He has red eyes and scabby skin that's grazed with death. A voice startles me - it belongs to my dad. What's he doing here? I hadn't seen him, he must have been standing in the back.

He's the visitor...

I scold myself and remember, vampires don't exist. This is all smoke and mirrors.

"Bella, look - the Cullens came to see you! Doctor Cullen has asked to allow you to come with them, isn't that nice?" His voice is wrong, too friendly. He's talking to me as if I'm just a little girl. He coughs a bit and comes toward me. "Bells, won't it be better this way? You'll be out of here with people to talk to you and," he pauses - lowering his voice, "Kiddo, I don't know what else to do. You're not improving here, nothing is working and I think they could do you some good."

I have to reach out and grab on to Charlie's arm for balance because when I look behind him, the shapes are still all there - twisting back and forth from marvelous to terrifying.

Alice's harp like voice is sharp. "Carlisle, something's wrong."

Doctor...Doctor Cullen? Doctor Thompson...

I tilt my head to the side and the words click into place like a puzzle. "No!" I shriek. Arms chain themselves around me and I start shouting more. There is a rush of footsteps gliding quickly across the floor and my breathing gets harder, my arms flinging out to pinch and claw my way out.

John is on me...

I dive deeper into the cocoon, defending myself as long as possible. "I'll kill you, I'll kill you for touching me!"

A smooth, musical voice yells and it sounds like piano keys echoing. I start biting at whomever has their warm hands gripping me, gnashing and scraping to cause some kind of reaction. There is cold skin brushing against my cheek and I can tell I'm being handed from one pair of arms to another. I feel like I'm dying.

Not yet...show me your face one last time...

"Bella, please, come back to me. I'm here." I thrash around harder, trying desperately to fight the anchor steeling me in place. Where is the angel? I hear him but I can't see him anymore.

"Edward, let Alice through," Carlisle says softly.

Passed again, this body is softer, smaller. Not threatening and rough. I subtly wrap myself tighter against her and then start to sob.

"Hi Bella, it's me. It's Alice," the harped voice strings against my earlobe and I feel like I may pass out. Wetness is at my inner elbow and I feel a prick. My eyes start to droop. Faces swirl into nothing before me.

I can't handle this...Edward...

**Edward's POV**

In all the chaos, Alice glides her back and forth as though they're on a tire swing in the wilderness. Kneeling next to them, I run my palm up and down Bella's back and Jasper stands in the corner trying to avoid everyone's emotions they may throw out.

Emmett watches the security guard from the corner, glowering, waiting for the moment when he and Jasper can follow him outside...where Rose waits.

I can recall rolling my eyes at her escapades with Royce and his friends, but now I internally smile at her vindictiveness. Fixing my stare back on Bella, I drink in the sight of her - even in her hysteria, even in the lurid concealment of her mind, she emits beauty. My eyes travel over her, taking in the way her eyelashes fan against her cheeks - her skin is translucent, she hasn't eaten enough. Her lips are chapped when I run a finger against them, the feel of sandpaper. She's so dehydrated.

Because of me...

So much could have been different had I stayed. We could have worked through this together but I was a coward. I was so afraid of being a monster. Now? Now I am one.

Alice shifts Bella over to Esme and stands, casting a shadow over me. Moving fluidly to the desk, she barks at the receptionist that she needs to see the doctor. "He's on the phone with -"

Alice's eyes flicker dangerously. "They'll call back." As she turns, marching down the hall, I turn to Esme and she gives me a small nod. Sighing, I follow the wrathful nymph to the center of this nightmare, Carlisle and Charlie right on my tail.


	10. Chapter 10

**Don't own Twilight. **

10.

**Alice's POV**

My boots clomp loudly against the tile floor. As I turn another corner, I glance in the tiny windows on the patient's doors. Some of the people shake, sitting with their knees pulled to their chests in a corner. Others scream, sometimes jumping around the room. They call out to shadows and images that aren't there - a few look to the door when they catch a glimpse of me, running closer to get a better peek.

I stop abruptly and watch as a boy about the same age as Bella breaths across the glass, fogging it up. He puts his palm to it, causing an imprint. It seems so silly, like a school boy merely saying hello.

I walk over to the door and press my own hand back, my return greeting. He makes a silly face, laughing - his teeth show as he throws his head back. For once in a long time, I feel light. Some tinge of a forgotten emotion surfaces and I can practically taste my humanity. Though, there's no money or shopping, no makeovers, fancy cars or jewelry.

But the moment dwindles away as it always does for someone like me. When the laughter bubbles up in my throat I accidently reveal my sharp teeth and the boy scampers away as quickly as he came. I gather myself up, trying not to let it get to me. But it does...it does.

When I turn around, Edward stands beside me holding out a hand and I launch myself in his arms, hugging him, hoping that the ache of all this will fade away just as the moment did.

Edward, of course, knows what I'm thinking. "You're not the monster, I am."

"I have to do this, Edward."

"No, you don't."

I start to say something more but Carlisle and Charlie have caught up to us, and I turn back down the hall. Knocking on the office door, I hear a rough voice answer, "Come in."

**Jasper's POV**

It's sprinkling outside. Emmett, Rose, and I are waiting...watching. We have to make this John character think he's safe. The memories of hunting like this are distant, but as I crouch here in the trees I can't help but remember ambushing Yankee soldiers as they marched past us from the road.

There are other memories too. Newborns and Maria come to mind, and though they were much different fights, I smile a bit thinking about this one. How easy it will be. My gaze narrows in on John as he sighs in contentment, smoking his cigarette. One last pleasure for the bastard. One last moment of peace. That should be enough to appease God. I'm an undead confederate, not a saint.

"Now?" Emmett practically vibrates next to me.

John takes one last puff and I nod my head to Rose. "Now."

Rose swiftly glides out of the trees, her heels making a soft clicking noise against the pavement. Strolling over to the target, she stops, bending down to pick up the lipstick tube she dropped. When she slowly rises back up she flashes John a brilliant smile and he shudders, returning one.

"Nice night, isn't it?" She comments.

"Yeah it is. Hey, where'd your friends go?" John returns.

Take the bait...

I blow off some lust toward them - knowing it will be a blast to watch Emmett lose it. John smirks, leaning in just a little too close. Right as his hand reaches out, the moon comes out from behind the clouds and sends a beam directly down, splattering silver across Rose's pale skin. The human's eyes widen and he looks up into her face - her dull yellow eyes locking on his as she grins. The lust works quickly, and her pupils dilate, making the outer rims turn black. She crouches down suddenly, snarling.

Now I wonder: is this a runner, a freezer or a fighter?

The muscles in his legs clamp down and he takes a weird stance, my eyes zone in on the hairs standing at attention on the back of his neck. Emmett slaps me on the back and leaps softly out of the trees, making his way over to his wife. No one over there has moved and a drop of sweat travels down the side of John's face. This time, I send out some aggression.

Whatever gets the party started.

A fierce growl sounds from Emmett and he turns to John, sizing the meat up. I cross my fingers, hoping no random strangers come walking from the hospital right now.

John shudders yet again and his legs break free - letting him take off. Interesting.

Emmett glides after him effortlessly, taking a swipe down the guy's back and a howl resounds as my brother flings the detached skin from his fingers. The smell of blood hits me like a wrecking ball and I tilt my head, sinking my teeth into the tree next to me.

"Faster, Em," I muffle into the bark.

Emmett laughs as he pins the bastard beneath him with his arms, squeezing just enough that the bones in John's arm snap. Another piercing scream starts to come out but Emmett quickly silences him.

"Who...are you?" He gasps, Emmett tossing him lazily to the ground. Emmett smiles darkly as Rose comes up behind him. "Me? Just a ghost."

Rose sneers at John and takes a good stomp to his balls. Another scream starts over the popping sound and they both lean down, again covering his mouth. "You ready, Jazz?" He calls to me and I rip my teeth from the tree and sputter out bark. Yuck.

"You won't get away with this," John hisses, through his teeth. "People can get evidence, fingerprints-"

Walking up to them, I lean over the body. "It's a good thing we don't have fingerprints then." Emmett tears off a leg, as does Rose, and I take the arms. John's screeches fill the cool night air. I smile. "What a waste," Rose says and nods at me. Finally, I snap the human's neck.

"Better find a good spot for this," Emmett states, heading for the trees.

Like I said, I'm an undead confederate, not a saint.

**Alice's POV**

It takes everything in me not to swing the door so hard that it's knocked off its hinges and splintered against the back wall. Instead, I turn the knob delicately and practically hop into the room. The monster sits at his desk - pink faded in his cheeks.

Carlisle steps forward behind me along with Charlie, and Edward closes the door behind all of us.

"Chief Swan, you know visiting hours ended a while ago."

"Dr. Thompson, my name is Carlisle - Doctor Carlisle Cullen. I'm a friend of Chief Swan's. We were hoping to discuss Bella's release with you. She won't be staying here any longer."

Thompson's eyes narrow like a hawk in on Carlisle's outstretch palm and his eyes rake over all of us, landing back on Charlie. "This is a private hospital, I'm afraid only immediate family is allowed." Charlie swallows.

Edward starts to speak but I press my foot down on his hard and he glares at me. I step up in front of everyone and bat my eyelashes dramatically at the asshole. "Doctor, my name's Alice, I'm Carlisle's daughter - Bella is my best friend."

He smiles appreciatively.

Carlisle lowers his voice so no humans will hear, "Alice..."

"Just can it, take Charlie with you when you leave."

"There's another way, Alice," Edward pleads.

"I don't care."

As they try to reason with me, I spot a video camera in the corner.

"Alice's - he's still another life, we can't play God - what if-"

Letting their voices skip off my like skipping stones, I end the conversation and speak loudly to Thompson, "I was wondering if I could speak to you privately, I was in a facility once and I was told you came highly recommended."

The rat's face lights up like Christmas tree and Carlisle tries to protest again but I interrupt with a whisper, "You guys - if you truly care for Bella, you'll let me do this. Edward, I may already be a monster in your eyes but I'm not that kind of monster and I won't become one by letting this go."

"I can't support killing someone," Carlisle argues.

Stunned by my sweet breath, Thompson recovers and replies, "Gentleman would you mind stepping out for a minute?"

Charlie's started. "Alice, I really need to talk to the doctor about getting Bella released."

"Don't worry, this will only take a minute." My eyes even in on Thompson.

Carlisle finally nods, and they all leave the room. As they leave, I whisper, "I don't expect you to want me to kill anyone, you know."

"I know," he replies quietly as he shuts the door.

"As the door clicks, I whirl on Thompson. "Now, we're going to play a little game."

"What the-"

I yank his white jacket up so that his face is level with mine. "You have five minutes to sign the forms for Bella Swan. After, you're going to head home. Do I make myself clear?"

He stutters out a "yes, of course" as terrified as he is. Letting go of him, I watch as he fidgets anxiously in his chair and open the door.

As I come out, Edward eyes me warily and states, "Thank you, Alice."

"No need, I'm not doing it for you."

"I know," he says quietly. "Just...thank you for loving her that much - I...I can't be that kind of monster, either." I finally feel like he's letting me in, and I take a closer look - watching the curtain pull back to reveal just a small boy. And he is a young boy, in so many ways.

Five minutes later, I remember the video-camera. That bastard's time is up. Edward and I both look up as Carlisle and Charlie exit the office, Carlisle holding the key to Bella's room. "We're done here, you two get ready to go. It's time to get her things."

As I peep in the door, Thompson looks up at me. He's running around, gathering random papers, putting them in his bag. "I'm on my way out the door now."

"Good."

He practically scrambles out the door, locking it behind him. I almost scoff out loud, like that will stop me.

As soon as he rounds the corner, I'm turning the lock so hard that I hear it crush and snap under my fingers. Prancing over to the window, I turn off the security camera before ripping it out of the wall. Edward meets up with my pace as I leave. "I need Jasper to come with me," I tell him before he can argue.

Nodding, he tells me, "I'm going to help, Alice. I know what you did with the car."

"I can't ask you to leave Bella, Edward."

As we turn the corner to the lobby, I walk over to Esme - who has a hold of Bella. There's something bewitching about seeing someone sleep, the peace of it.

_I think I understand your obsession, Edward. _

Charlie comes over, glancing at Esme carefully. He runs a hand over the top of Bella's hair. "I'll take her." Esme carefully gathers her up and hands her over.

Edward walks up beside me again. "You're not asking me, I'm telling you - I'm going."

"Haven't you figured out that not everything is about you?"

He bows his head as though I've punched him in the gut, breathing out carefully. "If she's not going to be there to watch, then I will be. You understand?"

He waits for my answer and as I start to protest he interrupts.

"Look, I don't need permission. I just thought after the last extreme decision I made concerning her well-being that I would at least get your _input _this time."

"Funny, you're not listening to it..." I trail off sarcastically, studying my nails.

"Jasper would want to be there if you were in her position."

"Fine, come with us," I pause, thinking, and then add, "I would want Jasper to be there if I couldn't be."

Everyone moves to the door and I glance up when I hear the soft padding of feet on grass. Jasper, Rose and Emmett have just come from the trees in fresh clothes. My husband takes my hand in his and we head to the Volvo.

We run through the forest, Jasper pulling out his construction jacket and hardhat just before snapping his fingers at Edward, who tosses the stop sign to him. Before coming here, we had made a quick stop at a costume shop.

We make it to the edge of the highway; Thompson should be here any second. The sound of _Don't Fear __the Reaper _can be heard down the road. I turn to Jazz, who waves a hand dismissively at me. "I know what to do, darlin'."

He darts out onto the highway and stands patiently in the middle, already flagging his arms and the stop-sign in the air for the car to slow. We're just lucky this guy doesn't live in the city.

Thompson rolls down his window and snaps at Jasper. "Kid, it's pouring out here! Just let me pass and it'll be between us." Jasper bends over, jerking the car door open violently.

"Easy, Jazz," I warn in a calm voice.

"Excuse me, " Jasper says, reaching one arm to the door and rolling up the window. He yanks the keys out of the ignition and slams the door so that it's jammed. For a second, I think of telling Jazz to do the same to the other two doors but Edward halts me.

"This one's not going anywhere - he's too frightened to do anything."

Jasper walks back to us now, ignoring the shouts and screams of the man caged inside his own car. "You better get the show on the road, Alice. He's pulling out the cell phone."

"The hell he is," I snarl, stalking out onto the road in front of the car.

_"Open the door!" _

I pull out the sleek remote from my pocket and dangle it hazardously in front of his face. The man's eyes widen in terror and he catches a glimpse of Jasper and Edward walking up beside me. My eyes fix on his, boring judgment into them.

"He's asking us to let him go," Edward murmurs. "After all this time, he still wants sympathy." Bitterness lingers in the air.

If I go through with this, I'll be crossing a line. If I go through with this, what will Carlisle say? Worse, what won't he say? My fingers circle the button_. Just push it, it's not that hard. _

But I can't push it, and shift away instead. "It's going to be okay, honey," Jazz tells me.

Edward takes my palm, prying the remote out of it. He grins widely through the windshield at Thompson and finally presses the button. We move away as the yellow flare lights up the sky.

My voice is lost on me as we reach the woods, tracking the way back to the Volvo on the other side. The peace finally gets the best of me, "You must think I'm a coward."

As Jasper wraps an arm around my waist, Edward looks to me - a reverence in his eyes. "No, I don't."


	11. Chapter 11

Don't own Twilight.

11.

**Edward's POV**

_"But not bad...no, I don't believe that you're bad."_

Her scent dangles, blanketing the wide room. I've never been so happy to breathe it in as I am now, in this moment. It tangles in well with the memories. Charlie had stayed with her for a few hours but left early this morning. I kept away until he was gone but with only the promise that I would keep my distance from the bed was I even allowed in the room once the Chief was out of sight.

_"And I'm afraid that I'd like to stay with you, much more than I should..."_

My hand reaches out to the covers, itching to draw them back - I want to see her face, have it poke out from behind the pile of cocoa hair that's swept across it. Her curves mold into the mattress, covered with a thin layer of sheets. She stirs, flipping over on her back and burrowing deeper down. It causes her right foot to edge off the end. When did feet become so interesting?

_"So what you're trying to say is that I'm your brand of heroin?"_

Just a little closer...

The daylight shines in - provoking her to wake up. My fingers ghost quickly over her, wiping away the hair from her face to allow me my indulgence. And I bask in the sight of her. The bags under her eyes are gone and her lips are plumper and less chapped. Touching the tip of my finger to the bottom one, I start to lean down, my own lips just a beat away.

_"Can I have a minute to be human?"_

Suddenly Alice stands in the open doorway. "Don't be stealing kisses that aren't yours."

I sigh softly, running a hand through my hair absentmindedly. "I haven't seen her in ages!"

"And whose fault is that?"

Snarling out a curse under my breath, I walk to the door. "I'm not leaving completely, not this time." Alice hops over to the bed as I leave and I want to believe that everything will be okay, but I can't help thinking of her voice ringing in my ears.

_"But it won't be all right when I'm not with you..."_

And now I'm angry - resenting everything and everyone - including Bella. But above all, I'm furious with myself. For once, I loathe who I am more than what I am. It's a tsunami instead of a thunderstorm. Everything drowns together - too much to handle and the voices of my family blend. Sopranos, altos and tenors fade into each other's tones like watercolors in a painting, and I run.

I run outside and into the woods, past the stream by the house - streaking myself with mud from puddles along the way. I could easily have avoided them...but what does it matter now? The puddles can cake me with dirt and splash me with brown water but I've hit rock bottom anyway.

Hearing the running behind me, I know they'll track me down easily - footprints, scent and all.

_"I don't have the strength to stay away from you anymore..."_

_"Then don't..."_

"Edward!" Emmett yells in the distance. For a second I think I'm going crazy because I can smell another vampire nearby and it's not Emmett. As I turn and look through the trees I get bulldozed to the ground from behind.

"How did you cover your thoughts like that?" I ask in amazement as Jasper shoves himself off me and into a standing position. He rolls his eyes.

"May I remind you I had another life outside of this?"

I stare, dumbfounded.

He continues, "I was a Major in the Civil War, Edward - we didn't have it as easy as the North, we had to rely on other skills much of the time. Besides, I figured out a long time ago it's easiest to get to you when you're thinking."

"I wasn't thinking that hard," I start to argue but he sends me a sharp look.

"Thoughts and actions can easily deceive but emotions never lie. You may not like it, but I know you as well as Carlisle."

My temper flares, "Then why? Why would you attack her like that, Jasper? If you know me so well, why would you try and take her away from me?" My eyes narrow, and his thoughts are guarded.

He swallows, helping me off the ground. He looks at me for a long moment and then walks away to a tree, leaning on it. "You have to know I didn't mean to...I didn't want to. I may have thought she was a danger to us before but once things...progressed, I knew I couldn't hurt her."

I snap at him. "Not the way I did, right?" Crouching down I let out a snarl. Automatically his own instincts take over and he does the same.

"Damn it, you of all people should know that I would never want to bring you pain, especially when it comes to Bella." He keeps trying to calm me down but my thoughts are causing my emotions to swing in every direction. Finally, I've had it, lunging at him.

He's quick as he dodges me easily. Rolling under me, I try to grab his legs as I see his next move in my mind. Barely getting away, he turns swiftly from behind and starts to put me in a headlock, but this time I dodge out of the way.

We circle each other, trying to judge the next move the other will make.

You're shocked, aren't you - of course I couldn't ever beat the mind-reader," he returns sarcastically.

In his gloating, he's distracted and I leap forward again. Though this time, before I can do any real damage, Carlisle is on me encircling his arms in a lock around my waist. Emmett has a firm grip opposite us on Jasper and we both struggle for our freedom, desperate to finish what we started.

"Enough!" Carlisle roars, and we both fall limp. They release and step out from behind us. "What's going on? I would expect more from two men who have two women in that house who need them both more than ever."

The silence goes on. The only thing heard for miles is the rain.

"Start talking.'

"Just some unfinished business, Carlisle. Jasper and I were talking."

"_That_ was just talking?" Emmett asks, raising an eyebrow.

"It would have been if Edward wasn't so self-righteous," Jasper snaps, glaring my way.

"Why should I listen to anything you have to say - you tried to take her away from me!"

"You took her away from yourself, Edward. I didn't mean to attack her - the thirst was too much. Do you know? Can you even begin to feel how guilty I've felt ever since?" He murmurs out the last part and as I look at him, really look, I understand.

"I told you, thoughts can be cloaked, but emotions can't. All those emotions surrounding you weren't just yours - they still aren't."

I start to say something, try to tell him how sorry I am for all the pain I caused him and Alice, all of them but he interrupts.

"You really are arrogant - you really thought you were the only one affected by this. Do you know what it's like, knowing that I was not only the cause of your pain but for my own wife's? I took away her best friend." As he pauses, I catch sight of his eyes - which are glassy with venom.

"I know you and Alice have your bond, I know Rose is a pain in your ass much of the time, Carlisle and Esme are the parents you lost, and Emmett 's the older brother you never had...tell me something-"his voice cracks- "What are we?"

He turns away and I scramble for something to say. "Jazz, I-"

I try, but he cuts me off as he heads back to the house. "I do care for Bella, I killed for her - if you hadn't taken that remote, I would have. "

Emmett and Carlisle come and stand beside me. "Damn, he does have charisma." Emmett booms out a chuckle.

"I think it's class, not charisma," Carlisle says, giving me a pointed stare.

Nodding back, I suddenly hear Alice in my mind. _"She's waking up.."_

**Bella's POV**

This place is warm, heat hitting my face and traveling down my body. This doesn't feel like the prison of the hospital - I must be stuck behind that velvet layer, the one you push aside subconsciously right before you come alive in the morning and out of the dreams. I always knew in Forks when the morning would come because of the smell of eggs and coffee wafting through my nose. The only smell more comforting is cinnamon and fallen snow but that belongs to someone not real.

_"You're not that creative."_

I take a breath, filling my lungs - I know the musky metal smell will be there and I stiffen a bit at the idea of seeing the doctor today. Instead what I smell is fresh laundry with the hint of cinnamon and snow.

My eyes fly open. I know this...

Blue walls surround me and a sound system sits in the corner. My eyes dart to the left wall - covered in shelves holding CDs. I whirl to the right, taking in the black covered couch. I've been here before, but this bed is a new development.

My heart makes pitter-patter beats in my chest and I'm afraid to look in front of me, knowing there's something...someone watching. So I bunch the covers up to my chest and sit up on my knees, avoiding the intruder behind me. I turn to the glass wall, staring past my reflection and focusing on the fact that the rain has just let up outside.

_"Vampires play baseball?"_

The stranger isn't leaving and my skin prickles, feeling the hair stand up on my neck. I can feel it - the sensation's like a shot - making adrenaline pump through them, alive and ready.

_"It's the American pastime."_

A tear falls down my face as I realize I missed another thunderstorm - instead reliving the lie. Lifting my arm to my mouth, I bite down hard - it's time to wake up.

A frosty hand gently takes my wrist and tugs just enough to get my attention and I gasp, closing my eyes...I'm not ready for this.

"Bella, it's okay. No one's going to hurt you, I swear I won't even touch you after this. I just need you to put your hand down, sweetheart." This is not the rough, threatening voice I've heard so many times from the past - the tone is deeper, much like a cello.

The dull ache forms in my chest, squeezing and choking my heart and lungs. I don't bother wiping the tears away as I open my eyes and look up and take in the sight of Carlisle. I sigh and give him my brightest watery smile. "Please, I don't care anymore - just make the nightmares go away."

Taken aback with my words, he insists, "Bella, it's me, it's Carlisle." I look away to the window and crush down the scream that's building up in my throat. Then I notice...there's black seep coming out of the wall...oozing slowly onto the floor. It forms a small puddle and I glance at the book shelf behind him- cartoons wave at me. One pulls out a knife and stabs the other causing blood to squirt all over the books. My eyes wander back to Carlisle and I pull my wrist away from his grasp. That's when I notice, there's bugs crawling on my skin.

My eyes widen in horror. "There are bugs, there are bugs all over me!" I lean away from him and start to pull my shirt over my head. _"Get them off! They're biting me!"_

The cello voice is trying to soothe me, and the door bursts open to reveal Alice and Rose barreling through the room.

"Esme, please," Carlisle chokes out in a whisper I barely hear. Cold arms surround me from behind but when I turn around, I yelp and try to scurry away.

This can't be happening.

Esme's eyes glaze a bit and I begin to wish I could reach out and touch her.

Again Carlisle speaks, calling out for Jasper. The shaggy blond appears in the door suddenly and his amber eyes dart from me to everyone else in the room. He takes a soft step forward and I start to stiffen, remembering the fake memory of him leaping at me with wild eyes. The panic abruptly washes away.

"Stay," I request timidly. He nods in understanding and Alice smiles a bit in my peripheral vision. Glancing toward her, she winks. She grabs Rosalie's hand and requests for Carlisle and Esme to follow. As Esme begins to walk out, she stops mid-stride. She starts to say something but then shakes her head, sighing to herself. Instead she simply smiles, "It's good to have you home, Bella. I'll be just outside if you want me."

The door remains open and Carlisle whispers something to Jasper. He then holds out a couple pills for me to take. "These will help make the bugs go away," he insists, his voice cracking again. I hadn't forgotten that they're still buzzing and biting at my skin. I quickly try to swipe some off while swallowing the pills.

"I'm going to leave Jasper here, Bella. Is that all right? We'll leave the door open and if you need anything all you have to do is call for someone." Carlisle gives me a reassuring smile and then leaves.

A soothing violin starts speaking to me, "You'll come around." Jasper walks over to the bookcase and rummages through it. "You like Shakespeare, don't you?" He decides on a book and turns back toward me. "Edward told us you like to read - the classics in particular."

I nod eagerly and settle into the pillows. He picks a page, sitting down in a chair in the corner and beginning to recite. " 'That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty'."

"Hamlet. 'Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?'"

He smirks a bit, replying, " 'Ah truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd then the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.' "

He looks to me, waiting.

" 'Indeed my lord, you made me believe so.' " A tear slips down my cheek.

" 'You should not have believed me -" Jasper abruptly glances wide-eyed at the script and back to me. "Shit," he mumbles, "God, Bella, I'm sorry. That was a poor choice. How about _The Taming of the Shrew_ or _As You Like It_?"

I scoff, laughing. "That's enough Shakespeare for now, how about one of your favorites?" I brush another bug away.

"I don't think you would want to read anything I have, usually Plato is an acquired taste."

Blushing, I reply, " 'The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.' "

"You never seemed to be into things like _The Republic_..." His eyebrow raises a tad.

"I'll read anything," I shrug. "Besides, I know someone who likes Philosophy." My fear flares up but Jasper seems to sense it.

"It's okay," he tells me, "I'm not here to tell you life is easy - but, if you ever want to let someone in, I'll listen." He pauses, thinking for a second. "You know, Alice was in a mental institution once."

I think of Confetti again. _There is some truth in beauty. _As I continue to listen to Jasper reading, I feel a tad better. Maybe the beautiful lie won't be so bad to escape to after all.


	12. Chapter 12

**Don't own Twilight. **

12.

**Edward's POV**

There was a time when my eyes were a deep green, reflecting like lights off the ocean floor. Now as I glare into a mirror at the end of the hall outside my bedroom, all I see is yellow.

_"Hey, do you wear contacts?"_

And I had wished so badly that it had been just contacts, that I was still human...that I still had life.

But if I could have Bella forever, everything else could have just been a small insignificant sacrifice. I think of Bella's pleas for me to turn her.

There are those yellow eyes again, staring at me to come to a proper conclusion that I just can't seem to reach. My mother believed that every color has a meaning, just as flowers and stones. She used to tell me as a boy that my green eyes were peaceful - but over the years the meaning of the colors changed. Negative now, instead of positive.

Green is sickness, blue...sadness. Red, anger...and yellow? Yellow is cowardice.

Alice appears next to me suddenly. "You want to tell me what's wrong? You're about to break Esme's favorite mirror - I don't think she'd be too happy."

"I was thinking about something from my human life."

"Edward, I'm really sorry she died. But at least you remember some things. Little things...it's nice to have that sometimes." She looks down.

Even more ashamed now, standing outside my bedroom feeling sorry for myself.

Jasper's annoyed voice resounds through my mind, _"We're trying to enjoy Plato and Socrates, if you don't mind."_

Alice pats my arm. "I didn't mean to make you feel bad. It's just nice to be able to remember, that's all."

She listens as I repeat my thoughts to her about colors, without laughing at anything. When I'm done, Alice studies me, saying, "It depends on the person, I think. I love colors - it goes with having a good sense of style." She giggles, a spark of life in her eye. If anyone is as happy about Bella being back, it's her.

She turns to walk down the stairs and thinks about a green dress she bought for Bella and how pretty it will look on her. I stop her with a timid call and she glances back at me with a question in her eyes. "What does yellow really mean?"

"Happiness." I think of Bella, the next thought on the tip of my tongue but of course, she beats me to it. "Wholeness, and being complete."

**Bella's POV**

Jasper and I have been reading for the past couple of hours and I have no idea where everyone is or if the hospital even cares where I'm at.

"Are you bored, Bella?"

I shake my head quickly, "No, it's just...I guess I've got a lot on my mind."

We stare at each other for a long moment and then he breaks the silence when he glances down at the silver pocket watch he pulled from his jean pocket. "I should be getting down to Alice. We're supposed to be hunting. If you'll accept my pardon." He places the hardback down on the chair as he gets up and tips his head to me.

The question pops out of my mouth before I have time to really think. "Where are you from, Jasper? How did you and Alice get here?"

There's a small glint in his eye as he tells me, "Texas, and as for the other question, we'll get you some food. That one should be saved for another time."

This makes me a tad sad.

"We have lots of time to catch up, Bella," he hesitates, "So alike you two are. Did anyone ever tell you your mood swings are like whiplash?" Winking, he strides out.

The panic begins to rise, rattling down in my ribs and bouncing off the walls. My knees start to wobble and my eyes fill with tears - black seep is coming out of the corners of the floor and there's blood spilling from cuts on my legs. I've never noticed them before.

I reach out and start to smear the blood around but something cold takes my hand a stills it. A peace fills the room. Looking up, I find myself drowning in a deep yellow - the tuft of bronze falling in front of those eyes and a face filled with worry.

"Edward," I murmur and he squeezes my hand.

I jerk away, whispering. "You were right. You're all just a dream...a lie, something I don't belong to."

He kneels next to the bed and tries to grab my hand again but I back away more. "I was wrong, Bella. I was so wrong...about so many things."

"I wish so badly you were real."

"I'm real, Bella. I swear to you I am."

"You swore you would never leave me."

"Bella, please...it's the schizophrenia that's making you think this way. I'll prove it."

He suddenly pulls me up into his arms and starts to head for the door.

"What are you doing?" I shriek. "Put me down!"

He trembles a little, obeying automatically. He buzzes around the room so fast that I can't see him until he's standing right in front of me, holding out a change of clothes. "I'll be just outside, get dressed."

"What for?"

"We're going out shopping. The rest will come too, you...won't have to worry about being alone with me."

"I'm sorry, I just hate being touched - whether you're real or not."

Something in his eyes shatters. "I should have been there, everyday, I should have been there with you."

"You're not real...that's silly."

He shakes his head. "I'll be waiting outside." The door clicks shut behind him.


	13. Chapter 13

**Don't own Twilight. **

13.

**Bella's POV**

A hand covers my eyes and I hear a murmur in my ear. One that makes me think of someone, something from a lifetime ago.

It's the little things, the ones that remind me of those days when I deluded myself into thinking a small black-haired girl held my fashion sense in the palm of her hand. It's the little things that remind me of Rose and cars, of Emmett's laugh, of Esme cooking for me, of Carlisle and stethoscopes.

Someone grabs my other hand softly and glides me through a doorway. I wonder if this is a dream some sort of alternate reality.

"Open your eyes, Bella," the piano keyed voice jingles against my ear and I smile weakly to myself, letting go and fluttering my eyelids wide as I take in the scene around me.

_My own personal brand of heroin..._

I chuckle quietly and take it all in, the shelves upon shelves filled with knowledge - just waiting to be plucked and sorted through. Ink, paper and binding..._the stuff that dreams are made of. _

"Go ahead, Bella. Knock yourself out!" Emmett urges and I practically skip to the classics section and think back to the days of my childhood, reading with my mom. Once, she had even told me the story of _Dracula_.

Who knew...

Snapping myself out of my internal musings, I glance up to see that my hand is lingering against a title I've avoided in the last few months but now suddenly feel all too familiar with.

_The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. _

I never used to think of myself as a monster, but maybe I am. I can't believe they would allow a psychotic out of the ward - after all, too dangerous for the everyday commoners that go about their business each day. Envy rushes through my veins.

_You can never be normal, Bella. _

Jasper and Alice both hover nearby in the history section. Of course Alice would be eyeing old fashion books. Carlisle and Esme pace through the crafts isle and he watches her with obvious adoration as she flips through cooking books. Rose and Emmett are over sorting through a pile of paperbacks about mental illness - Emmett already has one book in his hand called _Speak._

Buzzing in my ear starts and I gaze up to the ceiling to see a swarm of cockroaches flooding the walls. My breath comes in shorter gasps and I close my eyes trying to steady myself. A man and woman pass by and I cringe away from them, knocking some books to the floor.

"Are you alright, Bella?" Alice asks quietly in my ear, and I jump just a bit. When I open my eyes however, the scales causing my blindness peel off - I hear a gasp next to me and Alice tells Jasper to get Carlisle.

At the focal point of my position in the store, Edward stands by the counter discussing something with the lady working at the till. One of the bugs from the wall descends, landing on his left cheek. Everything sews together in a web, becoming more and more entwined in the wheel. The woman can clearly see and talk to Edward but she doesn't warn him of the nuisance on his skin. It's as plain as the nose on one's face.

Every single thing, every moment, is illuminated. And if the lie I convinced myself of was so beautiful then the truth is the ugliest mess I have ever seen. Vampires are real...which means the Cullens are real...which means Edward Anthony Masen Cullen is _real._

**Edward's POV**

_Edward, get over here. The shit has hit the fan. _

Whirling around, I search for Emmett so I can figure out what the hell he's talking about. Though, when I turn, my face doesn't find his. It doesn't land on Carlisle, Alice, or any of the others. Instead, it lands completely fixed - on Bella. In this moment I know that if it were possible for me to die, I would. They say that just one small, seemingly insignificant moment can change everything in your life.

Bella has the face of a broken china doll, and even though everything within me shrieks, "fix it"...I know deep down, I can't.

The adrenaline pumps through her veins and she quivers under my gaze. Swallowing back the venom that gathers in my throat, I take a step toward her and in turn she takes a step back - running straight into Alice. She's afraid of me?

"Bella-"

"Not here," Bella quietly cuts over Alice, her eyes pointed to the floor. The firmness in her tone lets me know it's a command, not a request. Who knew that so little time, my family would be at the mercy of a teenage girl? She takes one last glance at me as we wait for the rest of the family and I notice that the light in her eyes has completely faded out.

"You know the irony here, Edward?" She peers up at me with a small, curved smirk. It shows no trace of happiness or humor - instead replaced by callous sarcasm.

Pleading to her with my eyes, I try preparing myself for the shouting and murmur, "What's that?"

"I cried practically every day in that hospital and now when I want to cry most, there are no tears left."

**Bella's POV**

The colors blur into each other as I stare out the window. The last 24 hours of my life have felt like a complete blur. They left. They told me I wasn't good enough to be a part of the traveling charade they have going - and yet here, a year later, the entire group comes crawling back. No doubt it's out of guilt and pity.

We arrive, pulling into the driveway of the tall white house - the perfect shutters...the creek running nearby.

_"What were you expecting...coffins, dungeons and moats?"_

Well, in this particular situation, that would be more ideal. Esme gives me a warm smile as she gets out of the front and I crawl my way out of the back, flinching away when Edward comes up beside me, offering a hand. "I don't need your sympathy, Edward."

He starts to reply but Jasper shoots him a look and instead, he steps away. Avoiding the rest of their gazes I run into the house, sit down and cover my face with my hands. Suddenly, something on the old VCR player catches my eye and I stand, walking over to it. An old video camera rests there and I pick it up, juggling it in my hands. When I pull the tape out, I turn to see Alice standing in the doorway with a look of horror on her face.

Edward is next to her instantly, pinching the bridge of his nose as he says, "Alice, didn't you see this?"

"She only just decided. Bella, sweetie, please give me the tape." The rest of the Cullens file in.

"Oh shit," Jasper whispers.

"Why are you all talking to me as if I'm a child? What could possibly be-" but the words catch in my throat, strangling me when I put the tape in and push play. On screen, the doctor leans over me.

"Bella, I sweat it's-" Alice cries before I cut her off.

"This isn't something you can cover up with makeup, Alice," I snap as I brush past her shoulder and climb the stairs.


	14. Chapter 14

**Don't own Twilight.**

14.

_Take this kiss upon the brow!  
>And, in parting from you now,<br>Thus much let me avow-  
>You are not wrong, who deem<br>That my days have been a dream;  
>Yet if hope has flown away<br>In a night, or in a day,  
>In a vision, or in none,<br>Is it therefore the less gone?  
>All that we see or seem<br>Is but a dream within a dream._

_I stand amid the roar  
>Of a surf-tormented shore,<br>And I hold within my hand  
>Grains of the golden sand-<br>How few! yet how they creep  
>Through my fingers to the deep,<br>While I weep- while I weep!  
>O God! can I not grasp<br>Them with a tighter clasp?  
>O God! can I not save<br>One from the pitiless wave?  
>Is all that we see or seem<br>But a dream within a dream?_

-Edgar Allen Poe

**Alice's POV**

Her mahogany curls dance back and forth, swaying as she storms up the stairs. As I hear the rustling of fabric and the sound of a zipper, I turn to Jasper and Edward. The black and white film still flashes across the television and I close my eyes, trying to tune out the sight of the grain and static. I should be ripping it out of the wall - but instead, I stare behind Jasper. Edward heads over to the TV, grabs the entire VCR and yanks the plugs out, launching it across the living room.

The device smashes into shards but none of us move an inch - staring at space and waiting for time; time that will swing and tick eternity away and still never allow us to catch up with its carved wrinkles. When I was changed I was lost...but I was always prepared. Fixing problems has always been easy, effortless. I remember watching cars roll by the window of a small cafe in 1948, waiting for the most important person in my existence to walk through the door and cause the little bell to jingle. Jasper and I had been accepted into this family...really without question.

But Bella? We had still been so hesitant, careless. Though she had accepted us all without question. And now I know, I understand - if we can't fix this then she will slip like a grain of sand between my clutched fingers and sink into a deep dark sea of...people. People who will look at her as a freak because of some small glitch in her brain rather than seeing her for who she is. I hear another zipper fly upstairs, she wants to leave.

I can't allow it, if fate had brought all of us together - if it had brought Bella into our lives, if I really am all knowing, then I know what I have to do.

Emmett scoffs at me, wringing his fists together as he says, "All right, how exactly do you and the prick here suggest we get out of this one? Why did you even take the tape in the first place?"

I squeeze my eyes shut, holding back the burn behind them from tears that don't exist. It's time for me to swallow my pride - I've been hiding behind it much too long. "I don't know," I barely whisper. Edward sighs and Jasper runs a hand down my shoulder.

"Wait - what do you mean, you don't know? You always know."

I ignore his comment and try to spew out an explanation that doesn't seem anywhere near important anymore - the way I once thought it would. "I thought it would come of use. I thought that maybe we could get the hospital shut down if I gave them evidence. It never even occurred to me that Bella would be on the tape like that."

A creaking sounds at the top of the stairs and we all look up to see Bella standing there, stone silent with a suitcase in her hand.

"Bella," Edward tries but she glares before cutting him off.

"Every single one of you is going to go sit down in the living room, shut up, and listen."

Rose rolls her eyes and Bella suddenly snaps.

"I'm sorry, do I look like I'm joking, Princess?"

We all obey quietly, shuffling into the living room and sit on random chairs and a couple different couches. Bella slowly descends, never falling or tripping into anything even once and Edward and I exchange a wide-eyed glance.

"Now, you're going to answer my questions."

Gone is the sweet innocent Bella that would have followed anything anyone of us told her - this Bella is ablaze. She walks to the middle of the room, grabs a footstool and plops herself down on it without a second thought.

She stares directly at Esme and Carlisle, a withering candle flickering low in her eyes. We all sit here, time ticking by in the background and it's so slow. The kind of slow it hasn't been in ages...decades. Waiting for a long lost youth that will never show its silhouette at the front door.

"Why?" She croaks abruptly, and the rest of us flinch a bit in our spots. "Was that all I was to you?" She turns to Edward and the rest of us. "Was I just...food you couldn't bring yourselves to eat? That's what happens, Edward? The lion couldn't feast on the lamb so he abandons it back in the wilderness?"

Seeing what Edward is about to say, I try to stop him but Jasper shakes his head silently.

_"Let him own up to his mistake, Ali."_

"Bella, I took care of Victoria. She won't-"

"You honestly think I wanna hear about _Victoria_?" Her fists are balled at her sides and I watch as she drags one up to her hair, unclenching and running it through the strands restlessly - shifting in her seat. "No, Edward. I'm referring to the fact that you left me, for dead. You claimed you loved me, you used me, and then you bailed."

"I was trying to protect you!"

"From who? Jasper - your own brother? That could have been anyone that night! That could have been you, Edward!"

Unable to remain sitting, Edward gets up, towering over her. "Exactly, that could have been me, that's the reason I left, that's the reason I ripped out my heart and shredded it when I told you those lies about not caring." He pauses, taking a deep breath.

"Did you come back out of sympathy or just guilt? Was it just too much for you guys to know that when you left I became sick and catatonic, as Dr, Gerandy labeled me? Wait-" Her eyes narrow into slits, "-what do you mean, lied?"

"I thought it would help. I thought I was doing the right thing by letting you go to live a normal life without having to deal with threats and insecurity. We're not humans, Bella. It was supposed to help you."

Shocking us all, Bella leans right up close and _spits_ in his face. "You know what? This was always your problem - you think you know everything just because you have your ability. And you always pushed me away. You constantly berate yourself for not being good enough and I did the same. And what's worse - you got so carried away with your bullshit that you let it eat away at the rest of the family." She turns, staring at the rest of us with a pointed glare and murmuring the last part, "What's worse is that you all _allowed_ it."

Bella pushes Edward out of the way and head to the kitchen - he and the rest of us stand, trailing behind them. "Where are you going?" Edward demands as Bella grabs the phone off the counter and starts dialing.

"You and I are no longer involved and I'm a grown adult, contrary to what's popular belief in this house. It's not your concern."

"Bella, please."

She slams a palm down on the countertop and sneers. "You're no good for me, Edward. That's what you wanted to hear all along, isn't it? Well, I just realized you're right - how does that make you feel?"

My mind reels from the impact of her words and I quickly walk over and snatch the phone from her hands. She tries to take it back - playing a little game with our hands before she finally throws her hands in the air and groans.

"You didn't even bother to ask how I might feel if you showed that tape for evidence," she whispers and my heart shatters all over again. "I thought...I thought you of all people would fight Edward on this, but you just...left. You let him decide _everything_."

"Charlie wanted us to tell you that he loves you," I whisper back hoarsely. What do I say to her when her trust in us has been so easily tarnished? Everyone she put her faith in left her.

Bella chuckles humorlessly. "He did, did he?"

"Yeah."

"Funny, he should prove it once in a while." She grasps her bag again and starts toward the stairs before facing Carlisle. "You all wear the same symbol - it's mark, a sign of loyalty and trust, right?"

He nods.

"Well, I suppose I don't deserve that mark even if I were a Cullen."

"Bella, don't say such things - of course -"

"No, I don't. I kept your secret when you left me, I kept it when the doctor raped me - when I started to lose myself I told but no one believed me. But I just realized it's only a mark, and I don't want it anymore."

Bella continues up the stairs to her room and as Jasper holds me, as Esme sobs into Carlisle's chest, as Rose clings to Emmett...and Edward lays destroyed on the floor...I wonder.

I wonder who you trust when your brain is a riddle.


	15. Chapter 15

**Don't own Twilight. **

15.

**Edward's POV**

Her silence always drove me to the point of madness in the beginning. But this is a different kind of silence, the kind that you find in the darkest places of a wood, the kind that revolves in outer space beyond meaning and time and everything in between. The type left behind on footprints in the sand.

And when everything slows down, when not even the echoes of a piano note can disturb the house creaking or the buzzing voices of my family inside my head, I memorize the rhythm of her breath. Her heart drums at a distinct pace in her chest and she rolls over on her back - mumbling incoherently in her sleep.

Again, I think of my mother. Again, I remember Carlisle's words to Bella on the night of her last birthday.

_"I've never been sorry that I saved Edward."_

_"You must do everything in your power. What others cannot do, that is what you must do for my Edward."_

_"...I felt certain she knew my secret."_

Shame soaks, flooding my senses to the point that it buckles my knees a bit even though I'm sitting down. Not only have I abandoned the one person who could see through the glass box - shadowing my family and I from the rest of the world, not only have I caused a mess of epic proportions among the rest of my family and this woman. I have also managed to forsake my mother's dying wish.

How have they put up with me for so long?

How can Carlisle stand me?

Pulling myself up, I take one more stolen glance at the woman flayed across the bed and exit my room.

I find my oldest friend as always, in his study. The glow of the lamp light in the corner flickers on the window. His stance is poised - one thing I have learned about Carlisle over the years is that even if I couldn't read minds, his face is always splayed open like a hardback book. His eyebrows pull together, concentrating stubbornly as the thoughts wander back and forth. As he turns to me, they quietly die out.

"Hello, Edward."

Judging from his somberness, I expect shouting - him telling me to pack my bags and get out. It wouldn't be anything I don't deserve, of course. Instead, he shocks me even when he shouldn't be able to. Carlisle is himself.

Always.

"I suppose I shouldn't have to ask but I'm going to anyway. Do you remember when FDR was President?"

_"How could I forget?" _I want to return. Roosevelt had been in office during one of the most prominent and struggling times of American history, the Second World War. Emmett had still been slowly coming out of his newborn phase at that point and Jasper and Alice hadn't met up with us yet. My answer is steady even though my insides are stretching like a rubber band.

"Yes, mostly because of Emmett."

Carlisle chuckles a bit before saying, "So you should be able to recall what I told him one of the times after he...slipped?"

The memory floats to the surface instantaneously. "He was ashamed, afraid to go outside for a while but you told him that he was strong and that he needed to face his fears or he could never hope to work past them. " It had been the very same with the rest of the country at that time. Roosevelt had addressed the nation once saying, _"We have nothing to fear but fear itself."_

"My father used to say something close to that, though when he said it he was mainly referring to our kind and werewolves." Carlisle pauses, walking past me and out to the hallway. His gaze lands on the wooden memento from his past. "I had always hoped never to become like him - cold and distant, even from those that should have mattered most."

"You have never been-"

He shakes his head and my words fall backwards at the tip of my tongue. "Edward, you have to know you have a soul."

Sharply, I turn away and reply, "Hardly."

"Fear drove us away, Edward - fear drove you away. You see, my father was so distant and I could never figure out why. It was always like he couldn't find it in him to attach himself to anything, and I think that's why he hated vampires so much. But I figured something out tonight - that or it just resurfaced."

I look back at him, studying for those thoughts he hides.

"He never took his own advice. He never let himself confront his deepest demons. My father was afraid that I would become a vampire so he distanced himself and never came to know his own son. The irony is that it's exactly what happened and I never saw him again."

And my own mother had done the exact opposite - begging for my second chance, not knowing but also not caring about what creature I would become. In the process of that one request I have gained a lifetime and more...a wonderful family...Bella.

Though, then I remember her acidic rage from earlier and I feel...sick.

Carlisle senses the mood change. "It's never too late for redemption, no matter what the people like my father might tell you. We all messed up together, Edward - you're not alone."

"I never have been," I say and then hesitate.

"What is it?"

My breath rushes out. "Thanks."

"I'll always be here to talk, you know that."

"I know, I mean...thanks for granting my mom's wish."

Carlisle looks down; the hint of a smile on his mouth. When he stares back up at me, there's a glassy twinkle in his eye. "It was never a mistake to change you, Edward. Even in the last year, I haven't regretted that day." He pats my shoulder and I nod, walking away and down the stairs.

Alice and Esme sit in the kitchen at the table, each ones hands drawn together around their own coffee mug filled with hot chocolate. I raise an eyebrow.

"It feels...warm," Alice says shyly. Esme covers Alice's elbow with a hand and the ice between us cracks as I rush forward, grabbing her and crushing her against my chest in one swoop.

"I'm so fucking sorry, Ali," I whisper. "I'm sorry for everything."

She glances up at me, shaking softly. "Edward, did you just say 'fucking'?" Esme comes, standing beside us.

"I-yes, I suppose I did," I laugh.

"Let's not make this a habit, young man." Esme's face is comically stern as I look over at her.

"Of course, Mom," I wink and put Alice down. "Hey-"

"He's over by the creek."

"What's. . .?"

"Just go," she urges, pushing me toward the door.

**Jasper's POV**

"Em," I interrupt his reading.

He huffs. "What?"

"I was just wondering if you thought we could ever go deep sea fishing for Halibut in Alaska?"

"Hell yeah, man. Hey, what's this word mean?"

I lean over, tugging up my fishing pole and glance at the text. "Epidamnus -it's-"

A voice sounds from behind us. "It was a city of Illyria on the North coast of Greece. _The Comedy of Errors_, Emmett?"

He shifts uncomfortably and shrugs. "If Jasper's going to make me read something while he fishes, it's going to be this play," he pauses and then mumbles, "-only good thing Shakespeare came up with in my opinion."

Edward studies us both for a minute.

"What, is it funny that Jazz has been helping me with this crap or something?"

"No of course not. It's...it's really great actually." Edward sits down to the right of me, "How long has he been helping you?"

Emmett looks between the frog across the water and the book in his palms. "A while. I wasn't the best reader at the time that I was turned. My family was rather large so my mom didn't have much time to sit down with me - and then the Depression started. I never went to school when I was human so...Jasper's been able to help me with the big stuff. Rose taught me the basics pretty quick and it's actually been handy to be a vampire in that sense."

"How didn't I know any of this?"

"I guess you were always working on music or off doing your own thing. I was embarrassed, I tried not to think about it when you were around. We worked on it a lot on some hunting trips too...Rose, she would have been a good mother. She helped me more than I can ever really let on."

We all stare at our reflections in the stream for a few minutes and then Edward speaks up again. "I didn't know you liked to fish, Jazz."

"Yeah, it helps me think. My Pa taught me." I sigh, "Too bad I never catch anything - you would think I could at least catch a catfish but I guess being a _soulless monster_ scares everything away."

"Jazz, I'm sorry I-"

"Whatever, the water's too shallow anyway."

"No, it isn't that." He groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look - if Alice was human how would you have handled it?"

I think about that long and hard and the frog across the water croaks as if on cue.

"I would have sat us down and tried-"

This time, it's Emmett who groans. "Cut the shit, Jazz. If Edward would have attacked Alice - at her birthday, human or not no less, you would have punched him clear into Canada. You know in Tennessee this could be settled with a few simple thrown punches and a nose break."

"That's not such a bad idea, Em," Edward considers.

"Excuse me!" I roar, right as a fist slams into my nose and there's a popping sound.

"Well, think of it this way, Jasper, at least you won't bleed!" Emmett laughs hysterically as Edward flings himself on me, dragging us both to the ground. Pulling us over, I start throwing some punches and kicks of my own. All the rage seems to gradually melt away.

Apparently it does for Edward too as his blows get softer and softer. I roll off him and into a sitting position again, adjusting my nose back into place and he does the same.

Standing up, I grab Edward, bringing him with me. "My little sister used to make the best fried catfish," I state, gazing at the stars.

"What was her name?" Emmett asks and Edward casts his own curious look.

"...I can't remember," I tell them, picturing her curly blond hair pulled back tightly in a bun, a blue bonnet sitting atop it. "She liked wildflowers - they matched her eyes." The stars burn brighter somehow, sending a fire swirling through the sky.

"Have you guys ever struggled with it...regretted it?" Edward asks and I chuckle.

"No," Em says with certainty. "Rose saved me in every way possible."

"I used to," I reply. "Every damn day when I was with Maria. But then," I turn to Edward. "I met fate and she gave me Alice."

And for one tiny second I wonder if he's going to start bashing me again. Instead, he holds out his hand in offering and I take it, shaking firmly. One thousand things current themselves in this gesture; he sees my thoughts, and I feel his pain. For us, that's enough.


	16. Chapter 16

**Don't own Twilight. **

16.

**Edward's POV**

It's August 20th. Bella has been with us for a little over a month now. And when I watch her from across the room at my piano I play Debussy subconsciously, receiving silent smiles from every person in my family, every person but her.

My teeth bite down and slice through the skin on my lip and even though it's been decades since any blood has been drawn, I still expect the life force to leak out and dribble down my chin. I still expect to wipe the red away with my fingertips. I still want Bella to be the one to clean the wound.

But there is no blood - there is only a clear liquid that has no distinct taste and yet sets my tongue on fire with its deathly sting.

Every day, Esme brings her hot chocolate. So far she's spit it up and chucked the mug across the room, watching shamelessly as it soars into the wall and cracks. As I hear the grandfather clock chime in low, alto tones here downstairs, I can also hear her screaming about how we've poisoned it with drugs and even venom.

I'm not sure what's supposed to be killing me more. That she no longer wants forever with me, or the fact that she's starting to slip so far into her mind's hidden chamber that I'm getting a real taste of despair.

Jasper, bless him, spends hours calming her out of the corner with Plato and Aristotle. They started reading Voltaire's _Candide _also. Esme dropped the breakfast plate she had been washing and sunk into the couch sobbing when she heard Bella quoting him. _"If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others?"_

Every day, Carlisle tells me to be fearless for her.

Every day, Emmett keeps us all laughing and going for her.

Rose reads up on the disease, trying hard to understand because she tells herself that's what Renee would have done. Alice gives money to charities in search for a cure she can see won't come any time sooner. At night the women take turns holding her in her sleep and I stare in the window - the very window that I flew out of with her the first time she came to the house.

And when her tinted cheeks show a fallen eyelash, I plead with one of the girls to let me blow it away in a wish - I wish for a bundle of things. That the illness never would have come, that no one would have touched her. Mostly though, I wish for us.

The haze of it all floats away in dust as I am started by a loud yelp. I don't hesitate, rushing up the stairs and practically knocking down the while wooden door that is keeping her a world away from me. Shaking with her knees pulled up to her chest tightly, Bella stares at me with watery eyes in the corner. "Help me," she squeaks quietly.

I slowly kneel down and start to crawl across the floor nearer to her form.

Is this what love is?

A hand halts my movements and when I look up, instead of Carlisle, I'm shocked to see Rosalie instead.

"Everyone needs to leave," she orders.

A few curious glances head her way until Jasper nods and winks at me. I stand and search for some kind of thought process in Rose's mind but she blocks me and smirks in mystery. Sighing in defeat, I walk out the door and gently close it behind me.

"So," Emmett claps a hand on my back, "-what now?"

**Bella's POV**

The foam bubbles up and I swirl a little bit of soap in between my fingers, gazing over at her slender body as she leans against the edge of the bathtub. Taking a cup, Rose fills it to the brim and murmurs, "Lean your head back."

Obeying, I close my eyes as the warm water cascades the remaining suds out of my darkened hair. Rose chuckles a bit and I peek at her. It's possibly the first time she has ever genuinely smiled at me. "You know, the first time I thought I would ever help someone take a bath like this, the scenario was much different." My eyebrow raises and she falls quiet before saying, "I wanted a child."

As I nod I can feel my eyes softening along with her heart.

"Bella, I was brought up in a much different time than you. At 18, I was engaged to be married."

I sit patiently, content at just watching her blonde waves dangle over the reflecting water's surface as she tells me about her past and what brought her to the other side. A gang-rape organized by her fiancée'.

_People hide away to guard the scars on their own souls. _

Maybe, just maybe I let my anger get in the way of really knowing the Cullens. And as the tears mold and curve their way down my face, the mask finally comes off on both of us. Rose had merely wanted to save me from her own pain.

"Bella, I know this is too late and, well, I haven't been the most welcoming person but-"

I run into a brick wall, crushing myself against her and clinging for life in the most emotional gesture I can give anyone at this point. I hug her with all the strength I can gather, splashing water over the edge and on to the floor and her jeans.

As I pull back to apologize, Rose holds me in place - hugging back with as much force as she can. "I don't mind, I'm not Alice, you know."

I giggle a bit.

Her shirt is wet in salt and water. It's like sacrificing a part of you to another person but as she kisses my cheek and whispers, "I never got to cry my own tears over what happened," I know the sacrifice is worth the draining ache.

"Then let me cry for both of us," I whisper back.

**Edward's POV**

We've just returned from hunting and walk into see Rose and Bella lying on the couch, Bella's head in Rosalie's lap as they watch, _Sleeping Beauty._

Bella's fast asleep when we all walk nearer to look and Rose gathers her up in her arms, beginning the haul up the stairs. I hear the door creak open and the covers moved around before she descends back down to tell Emmett goodnight.

And I can't help myself as I rush forward and lift her into a long hug. Her thoughts betray the last part of their conversation and I squeeze harder as everyone else just gazes on. "Rose, Emmett was right, for a heartless shrew...you're kind of beautiful."

Now I understand, this is what love is.


	17. Chapter 17

**Don't own Twilight. **

17.

**Bella's POV**

There are a thousand ways to describe the look and feel of a raindrop, especially when it hits your cheeks - gliding down the pours of your skin and slipping away into velvet green grass. And as this tire swing twirls me around in circles and I lift my head up to the clouds I can feel them watching.

The monsters - they're watching from the trees. I can hear the sound of flapping bat wings and the goose bumps on my skin rise.

Though, the droplets take that all away, if just for a little while. The thought of a cracking bat hitting a ball into the distance takes it all away for just a few seconds. It's the haunting shrill that I can't let go of even if I wanted to. When I begin to shiver from the cold, I still stay. I stay with my dreams and wishes, letting them drop crystal coins through the air around me. Maybe this is the god's idea of a fountain and it blankets you in each small desire.

Halting the round swing, I stare down at the paper in my hand. It was delivered this morning by Charlie. According to Esme, he was "too busy" to make sure I received it. There's another drop - only this one warm, curving out of the corner of my eye and sliding down to mix in with the colder liquid.

Did I push him away with my flaws?

Instead of thinking about it, I gaze at the letter.

_Brown Eyes,_

_It's not the same without you, obviously. Most of the time I spend trying to gather more clues...more evidence. I've actually liked to think I've done pretty good with it too. I'm happy to know you're out of this place. You should know that bastard John went missing - there's an investigation going on. Thompson seems to be dead. They found his car just a few miles from here...or what was left of it. Good riddance I say. There were also some remains of John found not too far from here. They think it's been one of those wild animal attacks again. _

_I hope things are getting better for you. I never had the chance to ask but have you ever heard of Salvador Dali? I ask because he was Ila's favorite artist - he did a painting called, Atavistic Vestiges after the Rain. Personally, I never liked Dali's distortion - maybe you could let me know what you think sometime. Look it up or something. _

_-Confetti_

There's a PS in which he quotes someone but I read it and stuff it in my pocket before it can sink in. Knowing I have to head inside now, I sigh to myself. But when I look up, an ivory hand holds out a cup of hot chocolate. Swallowing hard, I'm tempted to fling it away.

Who knows what they put in it, they probably want to put me to sleep.

I shake off the thought and stare back at the woman. She swallows too as her eyes spell out nervousness. "You don't have to drink it, I just...I thought you looked a little uncomfortable without something to keep you warm."

In the other arm she holds a quilt.

My eyes fix on one and then the other. I reach out, hesitantly, and take the china cup from her. As I cup it in my palms, she spreads the quilt over my back and around my shoulders.

"This is very pretty," I tell her, studying the painted flower pattern on the outside of the small dish. She settles in the grass next to me and smiles warmly. "It was my grandmother's, and one of the few things I took with me when I was married for the first time."

Frowning, I glare away in self-disgust. "And I smashed all the others."

Esme chuckles, "You're worth more than a few broken dishes, Bella."

"Am I?" I reply sarcastically. It hadn't seemed that way when they left.

"After what happened, I wouldn't care if you did that to everything I own. There's no excuse for what we did to you, Bella. No excuse for being a bad parent."

I swing back to her in shock. "You think of me as...?"

"From the moment I met you, as hard as it may be to believe now." She sighs. "My own parents weren't as supporting as they should have been."

My chest constricts thinking about Esme and her lost little boy. "What were they like?"

She stares at the side of the house for a minute, then back to me. "My father was stubborn. Strict. I was always taught that a woman needed to be seen but not heard. It wasn't something I liked. I went along with it more out of self-preservation than anything. My mother went along with everything without a second thought and it always frustrated me to no end - especially when the arranged marriage came."

She pulls a lock of hair behind my ear. "I wanted to be anywhere but there. I decided to try my hand at teaching - something I have always loved. But the job was in a very rural area and my father didn't think that a lady should live somewhere like that alone - it wasn't 'proper', as he termed it. In 1917 I agreed to marry a man named Mr. Evenson...he had a very different side to him when he wasn't surrounded by people."

For a minute, my mind flashes to the hospital. "Didn't, didn't your parents find out - didn't they try to do something about it?" I can feel the dent of the swing wearing into my palms.

For perhaps the first time I have ever seen, Esme scoffs, narrowing her eyes and clenching her fists a tiny bit. "My parents told me to remain silent." She picks up a sliver of grass, playing with it. "You see, Bella, Carlisle didn't want to believe the same as his father...but I _never _want to become my mother."

Esme tosses the grass to the ground and we both stand. "So...they won?"

"No, none of them won. Charles suffered from his own demons, that's for sure. He tried to make me bear the burden of them, but I didn't. I didn't allow him to."

"And then you got away and found out about the baby?"

She seems to almost tear up at that, "Yes." The sun is starting to peek out from behind a cloud and it hits her hair just a tad, shining fiery coppers blended in with dark caramel. "I would like to show you something if you'll let me."

"Okay," I breathe at the sight of her beauty. She gathers up the blanket and I take a sip of the hot chocolate, about choking however and she casts a worried look. "Does it taste wrong? Maybe-"

"No, it's delicious. I uh, I taste cinnamon, I think?"

"Yes, your dad gave me the recipe this morning with the letter - he thought you might enjoy it with some mixed in," she replies.

"Mm. Renee used to make it like this."

"Oh." She squeezes my hand. We head around the end of the house toward the woods. "It's just a few steps in through here." She starts to recite a poem as we walk and the end catches my attention.

_I shall be telling this with a sigh_

_Somewhere ages and ages hence:_

_Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,_

_I took the one less traveled by, _

_And that has made all the difference._

At the end of the path I see the roof of a building - clear and wrapped in glaring sunshine from over the treetops.

"Robert Frost?"

"Yes, I really enjoy that poem. Especially the ending."

We come to the large building and Esme opens the door - inside there are tables and tables filled with all sorts of plants. I take a little step forward and Esme urges me on quietly. At the end of the long room there is a row of large cactuses - I make my way over to them and gaze on, running my fingertips over the prickles. Esme has tons and tons of flowers, plants, even vegetables in this place.

"My nurturing side never left," she laughs. Stepping up next to me, she gasps - her gaze on a small orange flower in the sharp garden. "I always love when they bloom - it reminds me of a relationship. With Charles, I was never allowed to grow." Esme glances to an unopened rose in another corner and I follow her stare. "But with Carlisle, there's always been plenty of beautiful flowers." Her eyes pull themselves back to the table in front of us.

"I'm glad you were so strong, Esme." The sun shining through the plastic walls causes her skin to cast its own glittering light against the plants. The colors seem more vibrant this way, each with its own hue.

"For what it's worth, I'm so sorry. It's not easy, I know. It won't be for a long time...but allow yourself to bloom again for your sake." I put down the china on the table and hug her - remembering the PS in Confetti's letter.

_If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow and gather itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way."_

_-Emile Zola_


	18. Chapter 18

**Don't own Twilight. **

18.

**Alice's POV**

People use the term, "It was a lifetime ago," very lightly now days. They glide by old stone buildings, never noticing the cracks that they bare to the world. Right now, I'm standing outside a cobblestone church on the outskirts of Port Angles. A humble steeple towers over me on the roof, casting its shadow directly in front of mine. Of course the afternoon sun blares in defiance so I cover myself in expensive gloves, sunglasses and a hat to shy away the unwanted attention.

Unlike Carlisle, my family was Catholic.

I take a leap forward, swinging one foot in front of the other and up the stone steps, trying so hard to be brave enough to continue the journey through my past. I want this for so many reasons, so many answers. For so many people...especially Cynthia.

The wooden door creaks open with a soft push and I glance sadly down at the line taunting me at the threshold. I guess when you hear so many horror stories about yourself, you start to believe them.

A gust of wind rushes by, blowing the ends of my short hair, it will never grow long again...but I continue staring at the line. Suddenly a pair of black boots come into view and my eyes follow the path up the jeans - past the buttoned shirt and jacket and into the face of the other half of my moon.

"Mrs. Whitlock, you're not one to keep people waiting." I smile - I love these little moments when it's truly us. When we can be who we really are.

I return the favor. "I apologize Mr. Whitlock." And then I step over the threshold and into the church. The rest of the family is right behind us, coming to help uncover the forgotten memories. This isn't Mississippi but I like to think that God will be pleased all the same that I worked up the courage to step back in his house.

Jasper takes my hand, his hat at his side in an age old sign of respect. "You ready, darlin'?"

No, I want to say but instead reply with a yes.

_Alice, follow me!_

Gasping, I glance around the shadowy room, darting quickly from Jasper's side and up the carpeted isle. There on the steps in front of me is a roped of area that guards the priest's reverent place of communion and worship, leading the people on in prayer. But the last time I prayed I was in a hospital...and human.

The wooden Jesus watches down on me and I am frozen, my eyes fixed with his.

_Alice, mommy says you can't come with us to church anymore, why?_

_Alice, do you like my dress?_

_I brought you a flower, I know you can't go outside much..._

_The curls in my hair you made are so pretty!_

And though it burns, although the ripped fabric in my heart leaks out a waterfall of sorrow and ache - making my catch my breath in my throat air that I will never taste or need again, I fall to my knees. There was always so much more than a blank slate of happiness when I shopped with money that I could claim as my own, when before the change I had come from a small house where it didn't grow on trees and I didn't favor the odds of the future because they weren't mine. I remember now, even if they are the littlest echoes coming from a distance of years turned into miles.

I can see her curly raven black hair flying behind her as I chase after her in the field of yellow daffodils. Cynthia, who looked like my mother and I who carried the handsome eyes of my father. They were gray. He would sweep sidewalks and find little odd jobs to keep us above water and even though my mother disapproved on Sundays he would buy each of us an ice cream and a paper for himself.

When my knees hit the carpet something beneath it makes a tiny groan and cracks off a chunk. Maybe Cynthia has been with me all along, spelling out hints and clearing out the winter. An acid filled tear forms discreetly in the corner of my eye - flowing to the gravity below. Jasper's abruptly next to me. "I love you."

He helps me up and I turn to see the stain glass windows reflecting colored beads of water on their surface outside. I glide by everyone - letting them look at and study the stories each tell. It dawns on me that Bella isn't inside with us anymore.

I head to the front door which is standing ajar and glance out in the falling silver. She's dancing in circles on the sidewalk. Soft footsteps sound behind me but I keep watching Bella as her arms reach up to the sky and she spins her world in a pull, laughing for possibly the first time in a long while.

Carlisle speaks up. "I should get a jacket out of the car for her."

Edward stops him, "I'll do it." He walks gradually down the steps as though he's afraid of scaring a small bird away into the sunlight. I keep looking at her, wondering how long the swirl of emotions will last.

"Bella hates anything cold and she's never like the rain either. What's with the sudden obsession she has with it?"Emmett asks, furrowing his brow.

I shrug, not knowing what to say. Instead I watch sullenly as Bella rips the fabric away from Edward and turns away. He tells her he loves her softly and the wind carries it away. I feel as though the same has happened with my prayers. And that's when the next vision comes and everyone clears out of my view.

The pictures make my fists squeeze and I feel Jasper send calm to wash over me. I see Bella screaming and yelling words that mix blood on metal. When it ends, I pant air that I don't need for comfort that can only come from confronting our demons.

Ignoring the rest of them, I walk down to where Edward and Bella face off in the middle of the road. Bella spots me and her eyes narrow in.

"What? Are you here to feed me the same bullshit that he is? Let me guess, Alice. Your leaving was part of the intricate web of fate and you still think that by waving your magic wand everything will be just fine and dandy between everyone."

Edward tries to step forward again but Bella takes another step back. "You're going to get sick standing out here, Bella! Let's just get back inside, please?"

"Funny, you didn't care about leaving me in the middle of the woods the day you dragged me out there to break my heart and spit on it. You didn't care if I caught a cold, you didn't care that there could have been some other threat!" Her voice becomes shriller as she nears hysteria. "I was willing to die to be with you, to be a part of your life!"

I look to Edward as he shakes. "I messed up everything, Bella, I know! I can't...I won't ask you to forgive because I don't deserve it - just-"

"Just what? Toss the past year aside and pretend that everything's great, that it didn't happen and we can go back to that day in the meadow?"

"No-"

"Then what? I'm human, Edward! A disease! A parasite!"

"Don't say that - you're not, whatever that sicko told you, it isn't true!"

A few seconds go by but it seems like hours or days.

"What am I then?" Bella whispers.

"Everything...you're everything."

Again, I swallow and step forward, knowing what's about to come.

"Bella-" I start.

"You know what, Alice? I don't want to hear it - especially coming from someone who forgot her own sister."

And there it is.

My eyes even with hers, tightening and locking on a tree just over her head as I speak, "You're right...of course you're right." This can't be the real Bella speaking, maybe even some of it's from the illness. But as I walk back to Emmett's Jeep, I can't bring myself to care much.

Edward calls out my name and I ignore him, opening the door to the backseat. Jasper hops in behind me and I rest my head on his shoulder. He doesn't say a word, but the silence speaks volumes.

Sitting on the loveseat and leaning against the window, my eyes follow her outside It's been a week since we visited the church. With her stealthy glances my way and the stifled sobs I hear her give off at night, I can tell she's sorry. Still, I stay here.

Fix it, Bella.

I want to know that not all is lost between us, that everything isn't really broken. In the meantime, I sit here waiting. My mind is filled with Sundays and ice cream, it's filled with running through golden fields and laughing at black curls. I think of window shopping for pretty dresses I could never try on.

Edward walks to my side. "Alice," he starts.

"It isn't your job to fix, Edward. She's not as fragile as you make her out to be."

He breathes out a sigh. "That was always my weakness with her."

I nod and Emmett joins us. "What's so hard about wearing a jacket? She hated the rain!"

"She did," we both agree with him.

"So what changed?"

"I'm not sure," Edward replies.

The rest of the family crowds around the window with us, and Jasper murmurs, "The rain is her sanctuary now."


	19. Chapter 19

19.

**Bella's POV**

The look on Alice's face plays over and over in my head like a tape that can't be destroyed. It's funny, I would have thought that once I spit more of my anger out, I would somehow feel better. Or at least, less miserable.

It didn't happen that way. It still hasn't. If anything I feel ten times worse than before...Renee used to warn me to be careful of what I say to people in anger. A hard lesson it is for me to come by apparently. She would have my head if she knew half the things I've said to the Cullens and Charlie. But then I had been just as horrible to her before she died. The memory makes me swallow hard, blinking back tears of shame.

Alice had forgotten me though...she had tossed me aside and abandoned me just as Edward and the rest of them had. Why didn't she stick up for me? Why didn't she fight for her best friend? I was supposed to join them - she was adamant about the future of Edward and I. But after my birthday...nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I think about it hard as I wander aimlessly through the aisles of the bookstore in Port Angles. Turning the corner, I spot a man in a dark suit glaring at me as he speaks into a tiny microphone hooked on his shirt. When I look at him, he smirks darkly.

_It's not real...just a figment of your imagination..._

I hear a little laugh behind me and whip around to see who's following me - no one. The voice speaks anyway. _Isabella..._

This is going to make me sick and I can feel the bile rising up my throat and my lungs constricting in my chest with anxiety.

One...two...three...

The room is getting hotter, making my hair mat down in my eyes because of the sweat suddenly on my forehead. I think back to that night when I came looking for the same bookstore - that crawling feeling I had when the men started herding me into a corner and I was prepared to defend myself with some little move Charlie had taught me, the feeling crashes over me and I can feel myself getting dizzy and lost.

Back then I was so oblivious to the dark side of the world, where no light shines except that train that bellows a warning to get out of the way or be flattened and scattered to the wind.

Edward was right in his assumption; I am a kitten pretending to be a tiger.

I need to get out of here, I need to get some fresh air into my system - running to the door, I avoid all the hardened eyes on the back of my neck. I practically skate onto the sidewalk and lean over, grabbing my legs and taking large breaths to calm myself down.

A hand settles on my upper back and I relax when I look through my legs to see Jasper's boots.

"What's the deal with you?" I shake his arm off me as I stand.

"What is it with you people? Can't I be alone for two seconds?"

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?" I huff sharply, glaring at him.

"Exactly that -no. Hasn't anyone informed you, Bella, that no means no?" By now he has a small but smug smile on his face. "Look Bella, we all know you're in pain-"

"No, you have no fucking idea, Jasper."

He falls silent for a minute and then glances over at a bench in the corner. "Come, sit with me. There's some stuff you need to hear." He walks swiftly over to the wooden bench and sits, patting the seat next to him. I sigh and march over, sitting and crossing my legs."

"For the record, I do have an idea. I'm an empath - so just imagine all the pain and suffering I feel from you and the rest of the family on top of that _every damn day. _Hell Bella, I started this whole charade - don't you think I carry just as much guilt as Edward does?"

"What the hell are you talking about, why would you feel guilty?"

He stares at me in utter disbelief. "Bella, you had a birthday party...I crashed it when I tried to eat you instead of the cake."

I can't help it as I start laughing at him.

"You think it's amusing that I almost killed you and took Edward's mate away from him forever?"

Sputtering, I try to halt my thoughts. "I'm sorry, it's just that I forgave you the minute it happened. Look - I wanted to be like you guys back then, and really, there were six other vampires standing right there. Even if you had bitten me, I'm sure someone would have gotten me out of there before things escalated much further."

He runs a hand down his face, sighing heavily. "I'm really starting to grow tired of the lack of communication in this relationship."

"What, yours and mine?" Now I'm confused.

"No, yours and Edward's! But forgive me if being an empath makes me feel like it's mine," he grumbles.

"Oh and your relationship with Alice is that perfect?" I jeer back.

"Um, yeah. It's not like I wouldn't know if she's annoyed with me. Besides, Alice likes to settle things before they start," he replies calmly.

Silence falls between us for a few minutes again until the conversation has sunk into my head enough and I pipe up. "Edward only feels guilty because -"

Jasper sighs, interrupting me. "Please don't, I _know_ how my family's feeling. And Edward does feel guilty - but not for the reasons you make yourself believe."

"Well then, enlighten me."

"I'm not at liberty to tell you his secrets - you don't want me blurting out yours, do you?" He quirks an eyebrow at me and I sit shocked, my mouth wide.

"You-"

He chuckles, "You have every right to be angry, I know that. But just so you know, it's blinding you and keeping you from getting better." He traces the Cullen crest outline on his wristband with a finger. "You asked me once what got me here - I was hoping that story could be saved for another time but..."

He stares of into the distance, his eyes searching for the right words. He pulls up his arm sleeves suddenly and I see tons of half-moon scars covering his arm. I gasp as he rolls his eyes.

"There are tons of those all over my body."

"Why?"

"It's odd for me to think about how opposite my new life was before I met Alice and the rest of them. I was once closer to the type of vampires you hear about in books, - bloodthirsty, willing, able."

As Jasper launches into his story about being raised in the south and lying about his age to join a very different kind of war, I pull my knees up a little and cover my mouth with my palm. When I picture Jasper with crimson eyes and lack of any care a small chill runs down my spine.

"So wait, you were a Major in the Civil War?" I ask, astounded.

"Yes, Major Jasper Whitlock," Jasper sits up a little straighter. "Could probably have made General too if Maria hadn't sunk her claws in me," he grumbles again a little, sending a smirk my way.

"But you enjoy life with the Cullens now, right? And Alice?"

"Alice is everything you me, I could never regret a life with her in it. But Bella, the battle within was a hard one for me too. It's good to get your anger out but use it and be done with it."

"Esme told me I need to open up more," I admit softly.

"She's right - you have every right to be mad but if you don't try to work past your anger while doing that, then you'll be setting yourself up for more misery and ultimately..."

"What?"

"Ultimately you'll lose yourself," he murmurs.

I think back to that image of the train bellowing down the tracks, trying to force a decision out of me. "What made you get past your inner war, Jasper?"

"Well, I suppose like everyone else, I didn't want to be a monster. But really, it was Alice. When I finally escaped Maria, I found her - well, she found me in a cafe in Philadelphia. _'You've kept me waiting a long time,' _she said, and when I took her hand, everything just -"

"Lined up," I finish for him, recalling that day in the biology lab when Edward's glare was both so suffocating and mysterious. A more intense stare that even at first sight, had meant balancing the very world I carried on my fingertips.

Jasper smiles again, "Yeah." We sit here for a while, both staring out at the street and thinking without talking. He tilts his head to the side in a sudden thought, stating, "She makes me laugh."

Honestly, I don't know why but my eyes tear up at that.

The rest of them come out eventually, glancing at Jasper and then me. Alice doesn't - Alice looks in any direction but mine.

Putting my head between my legs, I take another breath of air and pant. I need to get away again but nothing is helping. Jasper and Alice have gone out with Esme to help her pick out some paint. Edward and Rosalie are in the garage working on her latest project. Carlisle is still working.

And then I hear something - a shuffling outside the room.

I slowly make my way over to the door and crack it open just a sliver. "Uh, Emmett?"

Okay look, I..." he rubs the back of his neck, "-someone needs to teach you how to fight the good old human way so...let's go." We both gaze at each other for a long minute.

"Em, I can't fight you, I'm human remember?"

He rolls his eyes. "I'm not that thick - I just thought of something that might help you."

Shrugging, I follow closely behind him as we march down the stairs and into the living room with the huge flat screen TV. Emmett hands me a remote to his Wii and I study it for a minute as he shows me what buttons are for what . It's hard not to stutter as I hold his stare for a minute and then turn to the TV, seeing a cartoon version of him and myself on it. "Em, I'm-"

"I can keep the pace of a sluggish human," he argues, cutting me short, "-if I have to." The boxing game starts and we circle toward the screen. The sight of bugs suddenly stops me though and another small panic attack begins. Emmett freezes.

"We don't have to do this, settle down there, killer."

_Isabella..._

The chills go down my spine and I drop the remote to the floor. "I can't do this, Emmett, I can't ever be normal."

His eyes soften before he lets out a loud, boisterous laugh. "If you're looking for normal, you're in the wrong house."

"You know what I mean," I reply.

He sighs. "No, I really don't. Bella, you're living with vampires. One is convinced she can see the future, another likes to play psychiatrist and tell me how I'm feeling half the time." I start to laugh with him. "And Edward? Well, he hears just as many voices as you do."

My entire world stops and I just bask in that truth. Edward hears just as many voices as I do...

I shake my head a little, "What?"

"I'm just calling it the way I see it. You spend so much time feeling sorry for yourself thinking that you're alone in your suffering. Yeah, we fucked up - big time. I can't tell you to forgive and forget and I don't want to. But think about this: Rose was...gang raped. Esme's own husband beat her, Jasper's a pretty good listener. Everyone in this house has something to offer you."

He reads my face and sighs again, walking over to the couch and plopping himself down on it - the wood beneath the cushions make a creaking noise.

"Yeah, even Alice and Edward can help you."

"How - by telling me more crap about who I am and what I should want?" I snap.

He annoyingly avoids the question as well as my face. "Maybe you should ask her. She doesn't remember much, but judging from the fact that tons of things have been coming back to her ever since-"

"She's remembering?" I walk over and sit down next to him.

"Jazz wasn't lying when he told you she was in a mental institution," he states quietly. "And Edward, that's a fine line there, but I would think you of all people would have been able to guess that the one person who loved you enough to-"

"Leave? Loved me enough to leave?" My teeth clench.

"Bella, we're arrogant. It comes from years of knowing how superior we were to every creature on the planet - especially humans. But when he met you, Edward changed...it was like...fate or some shit. The guy spent the last century alone so imagine everyone's shock when he met his match in the form of some-"

"Human, yeah I get it. But was I really all that bad?"

"You have to be one of the most complex and complicated females I have ever met. No, see this is what I'm talking about. Humans don't just up and accept everything in stride the way you do. And Edward is a pain in my ass half the time. Why you two don't get it is beyond me." He shakes his head.

"There's nothing to see! You guys are the ones who messed up - you left me for dead!" Standing up, the voices burst...getting ten times louder. Bugs start crawling all over me and the man in the suit stands in the corner. I scream. The unlocked gate releases a shot that the world could hear and I think of Jasper's words about the inner battle and shout - calling out to the heavens and cursing God.

Feeling a hard stone next to me, I pummel it, pounding my fists as hard as they will hit over and over. I kick my legs and finally fight something deep forgotten that's been dragged up all over again.

I think of Esme and Rose and I cry, I think of Emmett and Jasper and rage, I think of Alice and Carlisle and scream. I think of Edward and feel raw...mostly though, I think of me...and I feel everything. When the storm tires, Emmett steps away from me. He glances toward the door and back. "You wanna know something?"

"What?"

"It's time to take those imaginary bastards out. Give me ten minutes."

Of course it only takes him three as he comes heaving down the stairs packing a couple of paint ball guns. He beckons to me and we go outside near the forest. Handing me a rifle, Em tells me how to load and use it and then takes off. I just stare between him and the gun.

"Whatever hallucination you see, shoot it. Whatever voice you hear, pretend I'm the target." With that, he takes off at human speed - me on his tail. The adrenaline surging through my body feels delicious - each time I hit a figment or Emmett, something inside loosens. For once, the illness doesn't own me...I own it.

Ever so slowly, the rose is unwithering.

The night covers the road with a cloak again as we emerge from the darkness and laugh.

"You won't be in trouble with Rose?" I ask.

"Nah." We both look up at the house and back at each other. I start for the door when I hear him call out from behind. "Hey Bella?"

"Yeah?"

He looks to the ground, "Rose told me...well, she told me a few days after you talked to her that she's...well, she's not happy to be a vampire but..." he pauses, looking at me - really looking, " -she would only want to be human again if...I could be human with her."

In this moment, I can see how opposite his situation always has been from mine. Once I would have given up everything to be with Edward. But Emmett would give up his world to see her walk away - knowing that she would be happier human.

The steps it takes me to walk up to him seem like miles but I make it and when I do, I throw my arms around him quick as lightning. He lifts me off the ground, careful not to crush me but still holding tight as he sobs. I realize that this is the first time I have allowed a man to hug me in ages.

The memory will stay with me forever.


	20. Chapter 20

**Don't own Twilight. **

20.

**Alice's POV**

I watch the tire swing drag her around in the afternoon sun, the warmth of the day pouring down on her like a glass of golden lemonade. Nearby Esme has a wind-chime hanging, the sounds tingling small bells. It reminds me of those forgotten afternoons chasing after my baby sister in the fields of Mississippi.

The more circles she spins the more she laughs. A chuckle of my own bubbles up and Bella looks in the window, into my very soul. The tire swing halts and she closes her eyes, shaking her head from the dizziness. When they open again, they stare me down into a puddle of shame. Gradually, she lifts herself out of the swing but ends up on the ground. I notice the fall of course, but this time, it's the way she picks herself up right away and brushes away the dirt that grabs at my insides.

_"What do we do when we fall, sweetheart?" My father's gray eyes dance as he helps me up from the ground. "We pick ourselves up again," I huff, dusting away the rocks that have gathered, staining my pretty white dress. _

_He laughs, "It'll come out, Mary Alice. Now go help your mother."_

Looking up, I notice the form next to me and turn to her, taking in everything - her brown hair and eyes, to the tiny lone freckle on her left cheek; a north star on her peach skin.

"Hi," Bella breaths in a rush, afraid to meet my eyes.

"Please look at me," I plead. When she looks up, a tear leaks down her face.

"Did any of it make a difference?"

The wind-chime seems to grow louder in the background, a warning toll telling me to tread softly but speak the truth. "No." My voice cracks upon the word.

"Then why? Why, of all people did you go along with his decision, Alice?"

The silence mocks me as my mind fishes out nothing but blank, wide space. Bella waits, her face filled with the hope that a tiny ounce of some answer will satisfy. Too bad it's so hollow. "I don't know," I hear the sentence bounce off every hall, every nook of the three story house.

"And instead of facing the consequences, instead of accepting the idea that I might be just a bit angry with you, with everyone, you just...what? You think that I'll be thrilled to see you guys when you ride in on your noble steeds?"

I remain shamed as she continues.

"Alice, you knew. You knew from the very beginning of this mess that it wouldn't do any good. You knew that Edward was making a decision for both of us that wasn't just his to make." She scoffs. "You knew, and you did nothing."

She flops down on the chair next to the window and glares up at me. I force myself to keep looking at her, to keep receiving her spite because it's everything I deserve . But there's hope, isn't there? I knew this would come.

I always hear of parents rolling their eyes at young people surrounding them. Young people like to pretend they know everything in the world - that no one has anything to teach them. The cruel irony to this is that I have been here longer than any of those parents and right now I'm the child being scolded because she thought she knew it all.

"Did you see what they were doing to me, to those patients in that place? Did you ever wonder and look into my future and see the -" Her voice breaks off, the words losing themselves in the tension of the room. Putting one foot in front of the other I make my way over to her, kneeling down as I take her hands in mine. "He told me to block you, he told me to not ever look for you because it wasn't our business. That without us you could live a normal life with friends and Charlie. You could see Renee and enjoy the sun."

"And you thought I loved the _sun_ more than you and your brother?"

"I wanted you to have the little things, just as he did. I wanted to be able to do the right thing and let you go because even if I can do these things and have those visions, what if I really am a monster like he said we were? What if it all ended and you became one of us, what if you became like me? What if you didn't remember anything, Bella? Charlie adores you - I can't even recall my own father's name!"

"Charlie hates me! He hates what I became! Haven't you guys noticed that he never comes around, he never calls, hell - he dumped me on you guys so he didn't have to deal with the fact that he has a schizophrenic for a daughter."

"At least he's alive! At least you have others who care about you too!"

"Who? Who the hell do I have? You guys because you came back? Charlie when he doesn't show up? Jessica Stanley? Mike Newton? All the 'friends' I had besides you guys don't even speak to me anymore. Mike thinks I have too much baggage - which is probably true and Jessica and Lauren spend all their time spreading rumors about how messed up I got!"

"You're alive!"

"NO I'M NOT! I haven't been alive since Edward told me he didn't want me!" Her roar fills the house with a poison that makes it hard to breathe, even if you don't need air. "Alice, what is living? Your family has this logic that I can't stand. You have yourselves convinced that living involves blood pumping from your heart through your veins, that I need air more than love and friendship and happiness. Rose? Maybe she's the type that wanted kids more than anything else but I don't need kids. I don't need air or water -"

"Then what do you need?" The deep voice resounds from behind me. I close my eyes and sigh. We've been shouting so much at each other I didn't even bother to pay attention to who would be listening.

**Edward's POV**

I desperately want to give her an excuse, one that would be worthy of her forgiveness and wash the slate that tallies the sins of my family and me against her. But what can I say when everything falls short? I had just as well lured her into my castle and locked her inside a fool's paradise, a whimsical coffin.

Stepping into the room, I walk closer and Alice silently warns me to keep my distance.

Bella looks at her hands, crossed neatly in her lap.

"Because I can tell you what I want, what I need...and what I want more than anything...what I need more than anything is _you,_" I tell her steadily, daring her to look up at me and say otherwise.

She sobs and I try stepping closer but Alice snarls. Rolling my eyes, I gently pick Alice up and set her on her feet before kneeling in the place she was. "Prove it," Bella snaps before standing up and strolling in a whirlwind out the door.

"Don't follow us," Alice orders before marching after Bella.

Of course I don't listen.

**Alice's POV**

What if you could go back? What if you could bend space and time with words or feelings, or thoughts or dreams? Because I find myself in that forgotten wood again and the leaves are not a orange hue anymore but a brilliant emerald green.

This time it's not Cynthia I chase through the fields of Mississippi. It's not my father helping me back up after a fall. It's not my mother I'm learning from. It's Bella, it's her I'm chasing through the rainforest of Washington -it's she who picks me up after I fall so far. It's she who teaches me that the future doesn't make me invincible.

We stand facing each other in the woods just beyond Esme's greenhouse. I can hear Edward moving around in the distance, ignoring my earlier warning to stay away. Somehow, I can't bring myself to care. "There really aren't any excuses, Bella. I could tell you a thousand times how sorry I am, because I failed. But that would never be enough."

Her tears fall, glistening as much as my skin in the sunlight.

"You're everything I ever wanted in a friend and I betrayed you. I did it because my brother talked me into it." We let our pride get in the way and dragged you to a hell we didn't think could exist. "And I should have pushed his stupid ideas away but I didn't." She continues to hold her arms around herself, covering the gaping hole that I have finally gazed upon. It's my scarlet letter to bear yet she carries it. I step closer and a ray of the sun darts down through the branches of a tree, making my skin shine more.

She laughs bitterly. "Your skin looks like diamonds, that's what I told him the first time he showed me."

I blink back venom. She had fed us real humanity. "I know," I say softly but my voice is anything but velvet.

I'm so, so sorry. Stepping closer, I try not to scare her - the rabbit in the cage.

"What happened to Thompson and John?"

"Jasper, Emmett, Rose took care of John."

"Confetti thought some wild animal did it - along with the police, I knew better."

"Of course you knew better...always."

"Thompson?" She asks sharply.

"Edward, Jasper and I blew up his car with him in it."

"You?" She searches my eyes for something.

"I planted the bomb," I swallow, boldly taking another step.

"Did you..." Bella tilts her head.

"No I wanted to - I wanted to so badly but..."

"You couldn't."

"No, I couldn't." I hear the disappointment in my own voice. Bella launches herself into my arms, tears spilling like stones. They hit my skin and flash light that's different - they look like pearls.

"That makes you happy?"

"Yes." She pulls back, staring fully at me with a radiant smile stamped on her face. "But then who..."

"Edward." The name falls like a dagger from my tongue but instead of stabbing her, a tinge of peachy rose blooms in her cheeks.

"He killed for me?"

"He would take on the Volturi for you, silly girl." I answer. He would take on the world for you and show you it in a graveyard afterward.

I take her hand in mine and squeeze it softly. "I'm sorry...for everything."

Her mouth lifts a tiny bit. "I know."

"I was a coward, you were right about me."

"Alice, I'm sorry about what I said. Emmett told me about you remembering your past. I probably sounded like I was taunting you. In a way, I was."

"Don't apologize, it was true."

"But it was cruel."

I shrug and the next thing I know, she's kissing my cheek. "I missed you so much, Alice." Walking back to the house, I contently let her lean into me. "Hey..."

"Yeah?"

"Um, I was wondering if you would brush my hair, it's just...I just can't make it look as good as you do."

Hugging her fiercely, I tell her, "I would love to."


	21. Chapter 21

**I don't own Twilight. **

21.

**Edward's POV**

In Chicago, Illinois, in the year 1918, I laid in a rickety hospital bed waiting to die. One of my favorite pastimes had always been watching people walk by me without a second glance, wondering if the nurse who passed by my bed every night knew my name or if she just knew me as another statistic. Another victim to the slaughter.

In 1918, the United States had been rampant with a raging tiger known as the Spanish Influenza. It didn't steal simple objects like jewelry or money. It didn't steal hearts or affections of lovers. It didn't even steal running thoughts or dreams.

It stole people. It robbed me of my parents, it robbed me of friends, it even robbed me of myself.

And then, one day in March of 2005, in a rainy little town called Forks, I found myself all over again. Edward Anthony Masen was staring right back at me in a pair of chocolate brown eyes.

_It's always ourselves we find in the sea. - EE Cummings. _

So I ran away - I am always running; to catch a baseball, to pounce on a deer, and away from myself.

Until now.

If fate exists, falling around us and crossing our stars through paths and fairy tales, it must web them so tightly together that they are wired, down to the very last string inside the musical piano. It coils your string into another's, and your hearts dangle on the sides.

The result of this would make the sweetest tune in the world, in the galaxy, in the universe. But if that string snapped, if it broke, the resulting action according to Newton's Law would be devastating. I know this because I had tested the wills of both strings separately, trying to severe them down a middle line, foolishly hoping that one would have the strength to stand on its own and not caring at all about what would happen. As long as that first cord held...bound to a destiny for which it wasn't meant.

It had been like trying to work that same piano string on a guitar and hope the harmony would still be just as lovely as before. You can't force what the muses set in motion out of the way - if you do everything collides, sweeping down a track like dominos.

So I pray silently - something I don't think I've done since I was human.

_Mother, forgive me, and help me earn my way back to her. _

There's a sudden knock on the garage door and I look up to see Rose standing in the doorway with a small smirk on her face. "I still can't believe you didn't just get her something useful - a Ferrari, a Vet...even a T-Bird would have been better over this piece of crap.

I merely return a wry smile.

"I'm joking," she hops gently down the steps, reaching over and slapping me on the shoulder.

"Ow!"

"You were always such a baby. That tire is a little flat by the way," Rose returns, nodding toward the front left one. She sniffs. "This thing stinks - god, what is that!"

"It was a present Bella received from one of the tribe elders and his son," I finish fiddling around under the hood and close it.

"Ah. That explains it."

"Was there something you wanted, Rose?" It comes out a little harsh.

"I...I wanted to, well, I guess it's just," her eyes are cast down but she suddenly looks up at me. "She's good for all of us, Edward."

"Yeah, she is."

Suddenly Emmett calls out for her and she turns to walk up the stairs.

"Thanks," I say quietly, but just loud enough that she'll hear.

"Make sure you wash that thing," she snickers.

Carlisle and I have just pulled up to the Forks Police Station. He starts to open the door but I put a hand on his shoulder and he turns to me with several questions in his eyes - ones I don't need to pick out of his head.

"What if she thinks I'm just doing this to get back with her?"

He sighs. "She can think whatever she wants, I suppose. Bella needs her father, Edward, just as he needs her."

Looking through the front window I debate it - rolling around the possibilities in my head. "Yeah, you're right."

As we both step out into the air, I stuff my fists into my jacket pockets. Carlisle pauses on the steps looking back at me. "Remember Edward,' courage is not the absence of fear.'"

The door opens and we walk down the hallway to see Charlie opening the door to his office. His thoughts are almost as subdued as his daughters, though I hear him panic a bit at why we're here. "Dr Cullen," he nods to Carlisle and then his eyes dart over to mine, "Son."

"Chief Swan," Carlisle smiles back. "May we have a minute of your time?"

He hesitates but then nods again, letting us into his office and pointing to some chairs. We sit down and I can see the computer is searching for any kind of files on wild wolves that could have caused the massive damage at the mental hospital.

Charlie switches the screen off and the room falls silent. I can hear every beat of his heart, drumming systematically louder than it was a minute ago. "So what can I do for you, Dr. Cullen?"

"We're here to talk to you about Bella."

"She have another episode or something? I don't understand - can't you get her to take her medication?"

My hands are gripping the sides of my own chair so tightly that I can begin to hear it crack and snap under my own strength. How can he avoid this so easily? How can he just...dismiss her as though she's nothing?

But then I remember, I did the exact same thing.

_"Edward, the chair didn't do anything, it doesn't need to be punished," _Carlisle scolds me silently and then turns his attention back to Charlie. "Not at all, it's not anything like that."

Charlie stands, strolling over to the window and peeking out at the cars driving by. "Then why are you here?" He murmurs, his voice dangerously low.

Not the least bit phased, Carlisle replies, "Because she's your daughter and she needs her father."

Swiveling around, Charlie glares at the two of us. "She needs a doctor, a psychiatrist, someone who knows what the hell they're doing-"

"Yes, Bella does need that. But as a person and as your daughter who has one living parent in the world, it's not too much to ask that you stop by every once in a while, that you show her some care. Charlie, Bella was abused in that place, you're going to have to face that."

"I am facing that! I'm facing that every damn day - hell, it's my duty to fight these things every waking hour. And I have taken care of sick people before - my parents got really sick before they passed - that's why Renee took her and left to begin with. She knew I wasn't fit to be a father...I couldn't give them what they needed." He paces the floor. "Every sign, every damn sign was there and I didn't see it. And I'm her father, damn it."

Standing up, I send him my own glare. "Bullshit."

He's taken aback and Carlisle grabs my arm. "Excuse me?"

"You aren't a bad father by not being able to give Bella what she may want. But you should give her what she needs -"

"Oh? And you're any better? You left her, in the middle of the -"

"I did, okay? I left her, I broke her. But it broke me too. I was like you Charlie, I thought by letting the person I loved go I would be doing the world a huge favor. But I came back. And she may never forgive me but I'm not about to let her father make the same mistake. Take it from someone who knows."

We stare, neither of us willing to give in. Luckily, I have time on my side.

Finally, Charlie caves. "How the hell do I face her, boy? How the hell do I tell her that I overlooked everything because I was too big of a coward?"

"I suppose you have to put one foot in front of the other. First, you have to make the effort to show her you care." And then I turn, marching out of the office.


	22. Chapter 22

**I don't own Twilight. **

22.

**Bella's POV**

Alice brushes a tear away from my cheek with her finger, placing a kiss there instead. She ties a ribbon in my hair pulling half of it back. I touch it softly as she pulls away, running my hand over the silky curls.

"Charlie's coming to see you, he'll be here in a minute or two."

I stare away from her and out the window at the huge bug snapping his pincers at me menacingly.

"Bella?"

"I know you don't remember much, but I was sort of hoping...I mean, do you remember anything about the place your parents put you in?"

Suddenly she's sitting in front of me, my hand in hers. "I'm starting to recall things every now and then."

Swallowing, I look away from the big beetle behind the window and back to her. "Did they ever try electro-shock therapy on you?"

"It hadn't been invented when I was human, why do you ask?"

"There was a man in the hospital that I got to know...his wife...she received it for treatment when she was there."

"I see..." Alice replies softly. "You're wondering what kind of treatment besides medication you could receive?"

"No-"

"Just so you know, Carlisle would never put you through that. I'm pretty sure he would change you himself before he did something like that."

"Ila - that was her name, she died from it."

We both fall silent and hear Esme greet Charlie at the door.

I can't help but ask, "Do you still see me as a vampire?"

"I can't answer that."

"What do you mean?"

"Bella, we all have a destiny. I could tell you that the future is what you make it - and I suppose to a degree that's true. But I think sometimes, you have to stumble across fate before you realize this completely. It's sort of like wandering around in the dark. If you take your time to look for her, she'll meet you half way."

"I-"

"Trust me on this. I met mine in a cafe in 1948. I was looking for him, but Jazz, he just knew he was looking for something, or someone."

I think back to that day we sat on the bench in front of the bookstore.

_"She took my hand and everything just..."_

_"Lined up."_

_"Yeah."_

There's a loud knock at the door and Alice hops down from the bed, darting over to it. When it opens I find myself gazing into two exhausted, stained eyes. The brown is dull, faded out as though he can barely see through them anymore.

Alice steps forward, patting him on the shoulder before she exits the room.

My insides are crawling, squeamish. The room shrinks; it's like some episode of _The Twilight Zone _and that haunting, suspenseful music is slowly drawing out like a curtain to reveal the corpse or the man fiddling with the gadgets behind it.

Charlie's eyes move gradually from the floor to my face and when mine meet with them I can spell, feel, and see every crack, every memory pouring out his guilt and heartbreak. My feet touch the floor and I stand, leaning down to tie my shoes.

He coughs quietly, "Hey Bells."

My jaw stays tightly shut.

"I uh, I brought your fishing gear," he says.

Simply nodding, I get up from the bed and march out of the room, not even glancing as I pass Charlie.

When I look at photographs of water I can see waves of blue with a tiny splash of green here and there. So sitting here in a boat with my dad in the middle of a small lake outside of Forks, I'm surprised at all the real colors reflecting off the surface. There are silvers, grays, blues, greens from seaweed floating atop the ripples and the sun's bright rays - causing whites, gold and reds to scorch everything around us in luminous crystal.

I reel in my line, pulling up the end of the pole to see if I was imagining the gentle tug two seconds ago or not. Apparently, I was. Sighing, I release it back into the murky depths below. Charlie hasn't said a word, instead decidedly focused on attaching the next worm. He of course, has already caught four fish.

Figures.

I glance out at the trees, one hand resting my chin in its palm. Finally, the ice breaks between us.

"Do you remember when you were little and Jacob Black and his dad came out here with us?"

"Weren't there lots of times like that?"

He shrugs. "Yeah, there were. I can remember this one specific time though. right after you first met Jacob...you were sitting in the sand making mud-pies."

A thought strikes. "Jake told me something about that when they came to drop off the truck."

Charlie chuckles. "Yeah well, we used to keep the bucket of fish over next to you two. The time I'm thinking of, Jacob threw a chunk of dirt in your face."

My eyes widen. "Why? I didn't do anything to him, did I?"

He laughs harder, "No. At first I thought I needed to interfere but Billy held me back, telling me to see what happened. 'Kids sometimes settle things themselves' or something like that. Next thing we knew, you crawled over to the bucket and grabbed one of the fish, then crawled back over to Jacob and started smacking him across the face with it."

"I did?" Suddenly a weight lifts off me and I burst into laughter along with Charlie.

"The funniest damn part of the whole deal was the poor kid wasn't even hurt but he cried anyway. The fish must've been slimy." His fishing pole bounces on the edge of the boat. "You were always one hell of a kid, Bells."

The bubbling cackle dies short in my throat, and instead air catches when I take a long breath. I notice that the boat is still shaking and when I look over to Charlie, my heart is lost. For possibly the first time I have ever seen, he's sobbing into his palm.

"And I failed you as a father."

I used to think that I would revel in the sight of my dad's pain, but as I gaze at him, I'm merely at a loss. I just can't bring him any more guilt and pain with this...my insides fill with a drowning ache. Making my way over to the end of the boat, I start the motor and we head back toward land.

Every single one of them fixed their eyes on me the moment we walked into the diner.

I should have known it would come to this; being stared at by all the old men who drink beer quietly in the corner and the kids from high school, curiously examining me with their eyes. This time, I'm _not_ the shiny new toy.

I'm the one that went completely haywire and exploded.

Sighing, Charlie glances up at them as we sit. He drinks his R&R across from me and shoves a piece of steak in his mouth. His eyes widen and he coughs obviously as a high, fake voice practically squeals in my right ear. I flinch.

"Hi Bella!"

How nice, it's Lauren Mallory. Internally rolling my eyes, I turn in my seat just a tad and give her a smile. "It's great to see you, Lauren." Great isn't over doing it, I suppose. I could have used any number of other deceiving nouns in the English language. Or...not so deceiving. Words like disheartening, uncomfortable, downright suffocating...

Great will do.

She moves her long hair over her shoulder, silently flipping off the world. "Hey, so the Cullens are back in town."

"Um, yeah. I knew that already."

"Oh?" Her smile falters a bit, "so are you and Edward..."

"No."

"Oh! Well, maybe he's looking for someone more...carefree." She giggles and the sound makes me clench my fork tightly, smiling at her as I try to plunge it into my food. I miss, accidently ramming the prongs into Lauren's lower index finger.

"Son of a-"

"Ladies, not to interrupt your fascinating discussion but Lauren, you're driving without a headlight." He nods out the window.

"Um,..yeah see -"

"Come on, license and registration please."

They leave and when the waitress comes over to ask how my sandwich is, I reply with a grin. "It's so good."

We leave the diner after a few minutes of Charlie embarrassing Lauren in front of her friends and drive back to the Cullens in silence. When he pulls into the driveway, I can't quite bring myself to open the door. Too many things linger...the traces of humor from the day instantly gone.

"I...I screwed up, Bells."

"Dad when I pulled away from you...well, I'm not good at asking for help. I just - I wanted so badly for you to listen to me, for anyone to listen to me."

He sighs. "And I didn't, not really."

"You were just - look, you and I are more alike than I give credit. Mom could read everyone so easily but I guess when it came to you, I wanted to feel like I was doing you a favor."

"Doing me a favor? Bella, I'm -"

"It doesn't make sense now that I think about it. But at the time, I had the idea that if I could just shield you from all of my problems then I could protect you in some way. You wouldn't have had to deal with the same things that you had to deal with when you were taking care of Grandma and Grandpa."

"Bella, that doesn't change the fact that I'm your father, I'm always going to want to know...you never should have had to keep all that in."

"Then why didn't you ask, why didn't you push at me harder?"

Softly, he replies, "I didn't know how to help. When your mom left I thought it was for the best, if I couldn't make her happy then I couldn't make you happy," he pauses, "but this was about so much more than happiness. I let my own fears drive me to put you in that place - it was about getting you help...the right medication, everything. But it was also me being a bad father."

"I already lost Mom, I don't wanna lose you too," I say, a tear falling down my cheek. Getting out of the cruiser, I start to march up the steps of the Cullen house because I can't take this. A car door suddenly slams from behind me and Charlie calls out, "I know it's asking a lot but...would you...like to come back to the house?"

Freezing, I turn. "What?"

"You don't have to - I thought maybe you might...I mean I suppose you may want-"

Walking back to him, I let the fresh tears fall. "Sometimes, all a girl wants is her Dad."

He steps in front of the cruiser and I fall forward, into his chest. "You'll _never _lose me, sweetheart. You may have to knock me upside the head every now and then, but you'll never lose me."

Usually, Charlie doesn't hover. For once, I'm glad he does.


	23. Chapter 23

23.

There are cemeteries that are lonely,

graves full of bones that do not make a sound,

the heart moving through a tunnel,

in it darkness, darkness, darkness,

like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,

as though we were drowning inside our hearts,

as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.

And there are corpses,

feet made of cold and sticky clay,

death is inside the bones,

like a barking where there are no dogs,

coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,

growing in the damp air like tears of rain.

-Pablo Nerada.

Dropping my spoon into my cereal, I peer up at Charlie blankly.

"No," I hear my answer echo off the walls of the house. First the kitchen then the living room, and upstairs. But mostly I hear it deep within my insides, clenching my gut in and out. I can hear the sounds of the air flowing down my windpipe and into my lungs.

"Bella, please - you need this."

"Why Dad? Why did you bring the bodies here?"

He leans back in his chair and I can hear the floor groan beneath us. There's something about silence, combining itself with my tension that can make my hearing skyrocket. Sometimes I wonder if hanging around vampires really is wearing off on me.

Charlie suggested we head to the cemetery to see a couple of graves; Renee and Phil's. Apparently arrangements were made to have them flown up here. I guess maybe I should be pleased, but I'm not.

I'm terrified.

At any point someone could ask me to burn my foot, or to shave my hair off. I could drink a vile of poison and wait for my own death without question.

But I can't...I won't go see that grave. Not the one with my mom's name written in stone - a final farewell to the world and the daughter she left behind. Her sails will never steer across mine again...does that mean I'm left here to float in the middle of a black sea alone?

As Charlie stares gruffly at me from his side of the table, I seem to look through him. Getting up, he walks over to the counter and holds up an envelope. "This came for you today."

"Don't you have to go to work?" The jumbled thoughts come out harsher than I intended for them to.

He huffs, ignoring my tone. "Actually, I'm taking the day off. Those guys can handle a day without my ugly mug."

I chuckle and he breaks out into a smile, tossing me my mail. I pry it carefully open with my fingers and pull out the letter.

**Brown Eyes, **

**I've made some major breakthroughs with this place, but I'll have to tell you about it when I can - writing seems to make me paranoid. I miss standing in the rain with you - have you looked up the painting I suggested yet? Ila used to call the rain "God's tears" because it has healing powers. Maybe he was crying for people who couldn't. You know, crazy people seem to be more down to earth than most of the normal people I know. I hope all is well with you. **

**Regards, **

**Confetti**

**PS. No man is an island. -John Donne**

In this moment when the scales fall from my eyes again, it's not in discovering my past. It's not in anger, or sadness, or even being happy. Because now I grasp that final straw and pull it out to reveal the long end of the stick. It's a cold hard slap in the face, a reality check scribbled to my name.

The problem was never that I don't have the option to get better, to try to reach out for help. The reason I'm drowning is because I haven't made any effort at all to grab the hand dangling above me, waiting to help me break the surface; a solution that has been waving itself in front of me the entire time.

If I want to get better, I have to choose to try.

The Cullens left but they came back. They could have come back for so many different reasons, but they came back for me.

No man is an island...

Suddenly, I can breathe without gasping for oxygen. There's no water sloshing around me and I can recall so many things with clarity.

Jasper had read philosophy with me, Rose had opened up. Esme told me to grow, Emmett had fought the monsters with me, Alice had admitted she was wrong.

There are still two more Cullens to face and pulling myself up from the table, I stuff the letter in my pocket and clean out my bowl into the sink. "Dad, will you take me to the hospital?"

Charlie looks up at me, "Something wrong, Bells?"

"Not that kind of wrong, no. I just need to talk to Dr. Cullen."

Sighing, he stands, "You know you can talk to me, right? I want you to know that."

I hug him, saying, "I know. But this is something I have to do - it's about last year when...when they moved."

Charlie pats me gently on the back. "You're a good kid, Bells."

There is a painting by Salvador Dali called The _Persistence of Memory._

In it, time covers the land - making everything melt away, even a human face. When I was younger I saw the picture in a book and it scared me. Someday I knew a clock of my own would start melting away. My face would become wrinkled with age, my bones would wobble from the liquid pouring off them and everything in my life would reflect back like a pool of glass.

And then I met Edward.

The pool froze over, covering my world with a thick ice. It didn't matter that I was a small doe in that frosty tundra or that lions shouldn't be there. It merely mattered that my world stopped melting into a waterfall that would fall off the edge of the Earth...because the lion just gazed back at me, making me warm while the rest stilled.

But then he left and the world started to melt again. He made it seem as if time stopping the universe was an everyday occurrence; that I really could go back to loving spring air when winter had surrounded me with delicate snowflakes.

And if the question is whether Eve would try the tempting fruit again, whether she would go back to sweet ignorance or a cold fire of cruel knowledge, I have no doubt she would pick the fruit again - choosing to sin...if sinning is truly what she did.

After all, when Pandora opened the box and released every horrible thing onto humanity, there was something lying at the bottom of the bin: hope.

So as I stand in the doorway of Carlisle's office, I do it with the spirit that maybe I am fixable, maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that maybe not all doctors are evil.

"Hello, Bella. Would you like to come in?" Carlisle asks softly from his desk chair.

There's another person in the room - a woman, stout with curly red hair and glasses. She smiles up at me warmly. I glance between them and Carlisle motions for me to sit down.

"Bella, this is Dr. Seward, she's a colleague of mine from back east. She's also a psychiatrist."

She holds out her hand in offering, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Bella."

"It's nice to meet you too."

"We were just talking about you," Carlisle tells me. "We thought maybe you would like to discuss some more options for medication."

"Yes, Carlisle told me you're currently on a medication called Zyprexa?" Dr Seward asks, turning to me.

"Yeah, I take it twice a day...but it doesn't seem to help everything. And someone usually has to watch to make sure I take it," I reply.

She thinks about that for a minute before saying, "Do you wish to get better?"

"Of course."

"Wouldn't you like to be able to take your meds someday without people watching?"

I nod and she gives me a genuine smile.

"Great! Let's start then, shall we?" For the next hour we talk about changing my medication to see if something else would help. I open up about the condition with her and she tells me, "We just have to fix you up with the right recipe." For once, I don't feel like a science experiment, instead...just an unfinished painting. Our time ends and she gives me her phone number so we can keep in touch - she's apparently starting an office up in Port Angles.

"I'm looking forward to it," I tell her and she smiles, looking back to Carlisle.

"She's lovely."

"She is, my family is quite taken with Bella." He winks and I blush, staring down at my feet as Dr Seward gets up and waves, vanishing around the corner.

Silence descends on the room.

Before I have the chance to think about it, a question pops out of my mouth. "Why...I mean, did you talk to Charlie the other day?"

Carlisle nods, "Yes, Edward and I did."

"Why?"

"Bella, please look at me."

I glance up and level eyes with his.

He sighs. "I've been a parent of five for quite some time now. What's more," Carlisle suddenly snickers, "they have never been toddlers with us - always teenagers. It's...quite the bunch for a couple in their twenties."

I can't help but grin along with him.

"Edward always overanalyzed things, even before you came along. It was never anything major with his skill. When you came to Forks, Bella, something drastic changed with the entire family. At first I pinned it down to you having such a powerful affect on his control."

Nervously, I swallow.

"But then Esme and I saw it for what it really is," Carlisle chuckles again. "He's a new person because of you, Bella."

Scoffing, I snap, "Then why did you guys decide to dump me like yesterday's garbage?"

He sits back and runs a hand through his hair. "What we did was wrong. You're a grown woman who should be allowed to make her own choices. And, if I could, I would go back and ask Edward to really think about what he would be doing - to all of us. You guys should have made the choice together.

"I let our fear of humans get in the way...I didn't even take into consideration how vampire mating works."

Listening as I fidget with my hands, the last sentence catches on my ear like a hook. "Um, excuse me?"

"That's part of what I meant when I said that Esme and I were able to piece everything together - even before we met you. You see, unlike people, our kind only mate once. We stay together until one of us perishes and usually the other follows shortly after."

My mouth is ajar and I quickly close it.

"Edward thought that because you're human, you would function differently and have a normal life. Again, our analyzing got in the way. Obviously you were just as...misplaced by the separation as he was."

"I just don't get why he left. Everyone keeps telling me it was for my own good - that you guys thought it would be better, he could keep me from danger. But what exactly did you think was going to happen? Carlisle, if anything the whole situation made me want to be like you more."

He raises an eyebrow at me.

"I'm serious, when you were here before everyone always had to protect me from one thing or another - it made me feel weak, like I could never measure up to any of you. And then Edward, always telling me how beautiful I was -"

"Are, how beautiful you are, Bella."

Flushing, I nod. "Okay, am. It's just that even with you guys all telling me that, I couldn't help but look around and see the rest of the world's reaction to me. The girls at school were always jealous, the boys were, well, aren't boys always that way?"

He laughs loudly.

"I thought that maybe it was just because he couldn't read me - and then that day he told me you guys were leaving it made me think that there was never anything special about me at all. That Edward had finally figured out his puzzle and gotten bored with me."

"The entire thing was for you, Bella. It was a colossal mistake," Carlisle murmurs. "Do you recall what I told you the night of your last birthday?"

_"Tonight is exactly the kind of thing he fears the most, you being put in danger because of what we are..."_

_"If you believed as he did, could you take away his soul?"_

"Yes," I whisper.

"We didn't even think about other humans being a danger to you, hindsight is always 20/15. And as I told you, we consider all of them our children, but actually becoming the role of parent in the ways that Edward needed. . .it was much harder than we would have expected."

"Is that how Charlie was contacted?"

His eyes really even with mine now. "Bella, I would happily spend every day pretending to be your father but the fact is, Charlie is still alive. What kind of people would we be if we couldn't at least help you try and mend your relationship with him? My own father and I didn't see eye to eye, but I would have still liked to have seen him again. Edward felt the same way - he would give almost anything to be able to talk to his mom and dad again. He didn't want to see you and Charlie toss it all away."

I gasp, "It was -"

"Yes, it was Edward's idea. It was never that Charlie didn't care or didn't want to see you, it was merely that he needed a push."

Looking past Carlisle, I stare out the window at the cars entering and leaving the parking lot and feel the weight of everything suddenly crash down on my subconscious. He's right - I could never ask Edward to give up his soul for me. And I do still have Charlie. And then there are the little things.

Renee's hot chocolate, my clumsiness, my brown eyes, . . .Edward carrying me on his back through the forest. I would never die, so I would never see Renee or Phil again.

But what would it do to Edward if I stayed human? I will grow old, wrinkled and melted like the clocks in that Dali painting. And when I died, Edward would undoubtedly follow. The Cullens would lose a family member. And humans change, they grow and morph the more the pendulum swings. What if my feelings for Edward flicker and die someday?

When I glance back at Carlisle, I can tell he's reading my thoughts from my expressions. They soften the more I look at him, but I can also tell he's troubled by something else. "Bella, putting everything aside, I. . .I want to tell you how sorry I am. I should have learned not to allow my family to run away from problems. It's something my father would have done.

"I'm sorry too."

His eyes widen and he leans up in his chair. "What on Earth for?"

I lean in just a tad and reply, "For thinking that every doctor in the world is a monster."

His eyes glass up as he says, "Thompson wasn't a doctor, Bella. He was a twisted pervert that I should have taken care of myself." Bursting into tears, I nod, and he comes around the desk to sit next to me. "It's not your fault, sweetheart - it never was." We don't stop hugging for a long time.

"Are you sure about this, Bells?" Charlie asks from next to me in the driver's seat of the police cruiser.

Nodding, I gaze down at the white tulips in my arms. "Yeah, it's time."

"I can go up there with you if you want."

"No, I'll be okay, Dad." Getting out of the car, I slam the door shut and slowly march up to the gate, pushing it open with one arm. The ground is flat, green - like most of the places in this little town. Charlie told me that Renee and Phil's graves are more toward the back so I don't pay much attention as I make my way gradually over to the little corner. When I do get nearer, I look up and gasp to see who is standing there.

"Edward?"


	24. Chapter 24

**Don's own it. **

24.

**Edward's POV**

Whirling around, I breathe in deeply when I see her standing there. She stares at me in complete shock and confusion.

"What are you doing here?" she asks. I try to tuck the little white flowers behind my back but she sees the movement and her eyes narrow in on the gesture. "What's that?"

Letting out my breath, I hold up the tulips in surrender and give her an embarrassing smile. "I...brought her flowers," I tell Bella gently, motioning to her mother's grave.

Bella's eyes dart quickly between the grave and my hands and I step out of the way so she'll come closer. "You have white tulips."

Just then I notice the same flowers in her own hands, and I smile a little. "They're supposed to be a sign for -"

"Purity and forgiveness. . .it's the same reason I brought these."

A deathly quiet fails between us and my feet start to sway from one foot to the other. This is the first time we've really had a chance to talk.

As she starts to say something so do I. "Well I really should let you do this alone-"

" ==I hate to be rude but I'd like to have a minute -"

And then we both laugh. "Bella, listen, I-"

"Please, just. . .don't."

And I can't deny her anything when she looks at me with those deep brown eyes, making me fall into a kind of warmth that I will never know again. "Yes, of course."

I walk away from her toward some other tombstones and try to block out her voice as it carries. That discussion is hers alone. Instead, I focus on the past dates of those that were allowed into the heaven that I was not, But then, I wouldn't have met Bella. The sound of Jasper enters my head, _"The soul of man is immortal and imperishable." _

I wouldn't have known any of them.

My thoughts are suddenly watered down by a blood curdling shriek of pain and I whip around, panicked, to see Bella curled up in a ball on Renee's resting spot. I no longer care who watches as I sprint as fast as I can and make my way over to her. Getting down on all fours, I crawl through the mud soaked ground and gather her up in my arms. "Bella, are you hurt?"

Her puffy eyes poke up over her jacket at me as she says, "I told her I didn't need her anymore, Edward. I told my mom I didn't need her. . .and then she died."

I carefully draw her into my chest and rock us back and forth.

"Why does it hurt so much?"

"Because you loved her so much," I chock in a whisper, smelling the strawberries in her hair. As I look up, I hear a car door slam and see Charlie entering the gate. When he sees us, he nods at me, leaning back against the fence.


	25. Chapter 25

**Don't own it.**

25.

_"The place where you made your stand never mattered...only that you were there, and still on your feet." -Stephen King_

**West End Closes: Twisted Employees Facing Indictment**

A teardrop lands on the gray paper and smears the small black print just a bit. After all this time, after all the waiting and the worrying, Confetti had done it. There are voices - tenors, altos, sopranos - all creating a symphony in the background. Another tear drops from my eyelash and a hand rubs my back. It's small and cold but the feelings inside me are heating up the outside as though I'm a small sun that radiates happiness.

I could melt the cold with the warmth coming off my skin. Looking up, I glance around the small table in the crowded yellow kitchen of my dad's house. Today is September 13th, 2006 and I'm 19 years old. One year ago, that would have bugged the hell out of me.

"Dad, did you help? How did he. . .?" I trail off in a whisper, directing my attention to Charlie.

"Well, we were supposed to be saving presents for later but since you found the paper. . ." He arches an eyebrow at Alice, who giggles. Rolling his eyes, he looks back to me and smiles softly. "There's someone here to see you."

Quickly the panic squeezes in my chest but Jasper manages to throw some calm my way. I breathe in a sigh of relief and grin at him, knowing he might be the only thing to get me through this evening -an odd parallel compared to one year ago. Alice continues to stand by me, rubbing my back. "Who? I don't really know anyone else besides -" but when a stomping sound resounds from around the corner and I turn, looking up into the familiar face of an old friend, my sentence ends and my jaw goes completely slack.

"Hey, Brown Eyes."

"Happy Birthday, Bella," Charlie says gently and before I realize what I'm doing there's a scraping sound of the chair sliding across the linoleum floor. People laugh in jingles and I launch myself in Confetti's arms, holding on for dear life. He thrusts a CD in my face and when I pull back the words_, Van Morrison_ cross the front of the album cover.

"I wasn't really sure what to get you when your dad invited me over. He told me about your birthday," Confetti explains shyly, looking down.

"It's absolutely perfect," I say, tearing up.

Alice walks up beside me and thrusts out her palm in offering, "I'm Alice!" She chirps cheerfully and Confetti chuckles, taking her hand.

"It's great to meet you."

"Here, Bella, I'll put it on so we can listen to it," she offers and I hand her the case. "What's song?"

Oddly enough when it comes on the first thing that plays is _Brown-Eyed Girl. _

As the piano and fast beat tune waft through the house, I start tapping my foot. Alice grabs Jasper's hand and they twirl their way around the kitchen and out to the living room. Emmett grabs Rose by the waist, making her slap his hand playfully, and they do the same. I glance back at the others. "So wait, how do you guys know each other?"

"He and I have been working on getting the facility shut down ever since we pulled you out, Bella," Charlie tells me, taking a sip of his beer.

Confetti nods. "That night the Cullens and your dad came, I was in the office with Thompson. I also happened to have a tape recorder on me. I got it from one of my old co-workers on the force in Seattle who came to see me every now and then. After you left, I went deeper. I started sneaking into the offices with lock picks. . ."

Charlie pipes up. "Mel here was able to do us all a huge favor - well that's not the right word but I suppose we did get a bit lucky in the end. One of my old deputies from the department here was transferred to Seattle some years ago and he and Mel got to know one another. That day I came to see you in July, Bella, I ran into him. He started to fill me in on some things. When Mel would see him -"

"You were able to give him the tapes and such?" I finish, tears welling up again.

"Yeah," he laughs. "What's weird is that I can't remember always getting everything I needed but somehow they ended up in my hands anyway. I still can't remember getting everything. . ."

Putting a hand over my mouth, I look over to Edward who is absently fiddling with the edge of the tablecloth. He meets my gaze and some small ember stirs behind them, scorching the tiny pores of my skin alight.


	26. Chapter 26

**Don't own it. **

26.

Confetti and I sit on the front porch and watch as thousands of raindrops thunder down on the emerald grass. I think of Carlisle telling me that Edward's eyes were that color once and I shut my eyes, trying to picture him years ago walking down the sidewalk, arm in arm with his mother. His eyes would reflect pieces of jade when she looked up at him and smiled.

It would be like staring into a rainforest.

The sound hitting the roof in the background along with that image brings a smile to my face. "I suppose Thompson will remain a cold case file or something?" I ask, glancing over at Confetti as he pulls out his tobacco pipe and lights it.

"I suppose. . .he and that other fucker got off lucky if you ask me."

I chuckle, an angry Alice floating in the forefront of my mind. "I don't know. . ."

"Well, John got what was coming to him I guess. You should have heard about all the parts they found in the woods. No fingerprints, nothin'." He smokes a bit and then says, "Thompson, well. . .wherever he is, I imagine he's become someone's bitch."

"How do you know?" I laugh.

He shrugs, "I have a feeling God wouldn't be too kind to his type."

"You honestly believe there's an afterlife?"

"Uh...yeah, who else is supposed to make sure that asshole rots?"

I stare at him for a minute and then reply. "Fair enough."

"Beside's haven't you read _The Divine Comedy_?"

"Yeah, so?"

_"There is a light above, which visible _

_Makes the Creator unto every creature,_

_Who only in beholding him has peace,_

_And it expands itself in circular form_

_To such extent, that its circumference_

_Would be too large a girdle for the sun."_

"Dante."

"Listen carefully: God doesn't damn anybody. People damn themselves."

"So what happens to the rest of them now?"

"Many of them will get time, just depends on how much. They've already been going through the documents - I got promoted over this shit and everything."

Slapping his back, I chuckle, "Congratulations." And then I stand up and leap off the porch down into the rain, twirling in the liquid stardust. I look back to him and say, "Well, there are a couple things I did learn from all this."

"Oh yeah, what would that be?" He smirks back.

"Helen Keller - _although the world is full of suffering, it's also full of overcoming it."_

Confetti bows in his seat, "Well done Grasshopper. "

"So now you're Mr. Miagi?"

"How do you think I got so smart?" He holds up his hands, rotating them. "Wax on, wax off!"

I shake my head and laugh silently at him.

"What would the other lesson be?"

"Forgiveness - you have to forgive yourself, Mel."

"Okay, then it appears you have some final forgiving to do too."

Esme opens the door and calls for us to come inside and I look back at Confetti. He arches his eyebrow, leaning forward and nodding to Edward in one of the side windows. My breath catches in my throat when Edward's gaze turns and falls on me. Our eyes lock.

"I. . .don't know."

"Do you love him?"

Edward's stare remains focused on mine. "More than anything," I whisper, knowing he can hear every last word.

"That's what it comes down to then, isn't it? Love or bitterness, and the latter is a great load to carry around."

"It's not that simple," I whisper.

_"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." _

"JRR Tolkien." I continue looking at Edward, who seems to be with me at an impasse, pleading quietly.

Voices fill my head. _"I had to leave for you!"_

_"You really don't get it, do you? Edward hears just as many voices as you do."_

_"If I could dream at all, it would be about you."_

_"Tonight is exactly the kind of thing he fears most, you being put in danger because of what we are. . ."_

_"Everything, you're everything. . ."_

**Edward's POV**

I can't help but swear under my breath when she looks at me with those deep mahogany eyes. I've been through it a thousand times before, but no one has ever quite put it at the surface like that. And, it's true. It was always true.

God never damned me. He merely forced me across a fiery lake where she was waiting to take my hand on the other side. I had damned myself, which in turn had burned her at the stake.

Newton's Third Law of Motion: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Does it work the same with love? Does it mean once she hit the ground, she would stay laying there forever? Has the wind changed, making the leaf fly away from its spot on the ground to someone else's tree?

Newton's First Law of Motion: every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

Or. . .

Is it possible that the same force could have a parallel ripple effect in its fabric? Could the force be so great that when she hit rock bottom, our love could ricochet back up in the air?

Newton's Second Law of Motion: a body experiencing a force F experiences an acceleration A related to F by F=ma, where m is the mass of the body. Alternatively, force is proportional to the time derivative of momentum.

Our love has always been great, beyond any kind of mass I can fathom. Does that mean she can allow me in this time? Does it mean I can catch her and all the mass, no matter what speed it falls?

I don't know.

Staring at her as she laughs and closes her eyes in front of the lit up cake, I close mine also, making a wish. Today is Bella's birthday but I don't have any wishes of my own left. It's selfish, but I'm hoping soul-mates can share.

_I wish for Bella . . ._

**Bella's POV**

"Make a wish, Bella!" Alice cheers beside me.

I shut my eyes, knowing that I don't have to spend one second thinking about it. _I wish for Edward. . ._

After all, Dorothy found her way home again, Sleeping Beauty got woken by the Prince, and they all lived happily ever after, right? And when I lean down, blowing out the fire, the heat and smoke rises up in waves as I glance across the table at Edward. I don't need a prince, just a vampire.

The stare breaks when Alice tugs on my arm. "Presents!"

"This sounds familiar," I mumble.

Jasper smiles sheepishly. "We used good old envelopes this time, and here," he hands me a letter-opener, "Happy Birthday - from me personally."

We both burst into laughter as Charlie and Confetti look on in utter confusion. "What are they-"

"You know, Mel, at this point I don't even bother to ask," Charlie cuts him off with an eye roll.

Alice is tapping her foot impatiently beside me, "You can open it now," she huffs. Cutting the paper down the crease, I struggle to get the thin pieces of paper out. One flitters down to my feet and I bend, picking it up and examining it.

"Uh. . .a plane ticket to. . .well, two different places."

Alice nods. ""Yeah see - Mississippi and Florida."

"Is this more doctor stuff?" I ask her, and then turn to Carlisle and Charlie. Carlisle smiles warmly and Charlie clears his throat.

"No actually, the Cullens were hoping that you would go with them down there," Charlie explains.

"As a vacation?"

Esme nods, "Alice found her birth family and we were hoping you might consider going with us to see them. Plus, Confetti said something about you guys discussing Dali in your letters so we figured why not see his museum in Florida while we're near there? We could see the ocean at night and -"

Hugging her, I pull back and reply, "I would love to."

Confetti stands at the door, hugging me silently. When he pulls back, I wipe the tears from my face and grin.

"You take care." He smells of pickles mixed with chocolate cake.

"You ate that jar of garlic pickles in the fridge, didn't you?"

"It went good with the flour and butter!" He defends.

"That's disgusting," I laugh, punching his shoulder.

"Yeah well, your family creeps me out."

I snort - even Confetti gets a chill from the Cullens. "How do I tell him?" I ask, my eyes glistening with tears.

He shrugs, "That's something you have to figure out yourself. Besides," he leans in a little, "he feels the same way. It would take an idiot to not see how much he loves you." He pats my back and starts to leave, walking down the stairs and across the yard to the front of the house. It's hard, saying goodbye to someone I had leaned on for so long. He turns, waving at me as he pulls out his pipe and lights it,

"_It's elementary_!" He shouts one last time, referencing another famous author before turning the corner and disappearing into the darkness.

"Sir Arthur Conon Doyle!" I yell back in the crisp night air.


	27. Chapter 27

**I don't own Twilight. I have one small chapter to redo on this story and then I will be done editing it. Yay. **

27.

_"I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell, to die upon the hand I love so well." -William Shakespeare_

**Jasper's POV**

We're sitting in a car across the street from a small gray house in Biloxi, Mississippi. Alice sits next to the window - staring out at a woman gardening in the front yard. She has long silver hair pulled back in a bun that sits on her head like a small crown. Alice doesn't move, instead she squeezes my hand in her smaller one.

Bella leans forward from across Alice, patting her leg. "Take all the time you need," she speaks.

"I...never thought I would be back here again," Alice trembles and I send a calming wave to her.

"Honey, you don't have to do this if you don't want to," I assure her.

She shakes her head at me, "Oh, I'm doing it. I have to face this."

Tying a scarf around her head, Alice slides on her sunglasses and pulls on her gloves, opening the door and stepping out into the day. We've gotten a stroke of luck as the sun is up but blocked by several puffy clouds.

I pull on my hat and step out behind her. Bella jogs up beside us and grabs her arm, clasping them together. I send out more calm for the storm and look around. The street is dead, empty, lifeless.

Alice gasps just in front of me and I stop. Bella looks over to her and then at the house and I have to come up to see what's going on. The woman has halted her gardening , her eyes fixed on Alice. She stands up, wiping her dirty palms on her jeans and motioning to the bed of white flowers in front of her.

"My mother, she liked daisies," she states in an ancient raspy voice.

I feel the panic closing in on Alice and I grab her hand, running a thumb over it before smiling at her out of the corner of my eye. "You're doing just fine, Mrs. Whitlock." I turn to the woman in front of us and apologize. "I'm sorry, Ma'am. My wife is taken back at how beautiful your house is."

She returns a nervous smile, "Thank you, it was also actually my mothers."

Alice gathers herself together and chuckles, "I bet your mother was also very pretty."

"Oh yes, she was. My father used to say she was the most beautiful creature in the south. Would you like to see a picture of her?"

"I would love to," my wife replies, her voice strained.

Walking over to the fence, the woman pulls out a necklace from around her neck and opens up an oval locket on the end. "That's my mother on the right and on the left is my aunt Mary, her sister."

I lean in, peering over Alice to see the photo. Of course, Cynthia is rather small in the picture so it's hard to know when it would have been taken. When I gaze at the picture on the left, I kiss Alice's cheek and whisper softly in her ear, "Mary is very beautiful."

And she was, with her long raven black hair cascading down her shoulder in soft curls. There's something unique about this photo though, something that lets me know she was my Alice all along. Most old photographs have people solemnly staring into the camera that leaves them appearing cold.

But Alice? Alice smiled, even back then.

"It's really too bad about Mary. She was unstable and my grandparents were forced to put her in an institution. No one ever heard about her after that. Shame - how crazy -"

"It's a shame that no one took the time to visit her and let her know she was loved, if you ask me," Bella cuts in and Alice trembles in my arms.

She nods to the lady, "It was nice to meet you, Mrs...?"

"Finch."

"Out of curiosity, what's your first name?"

"Alice."

My own Alice gets teary-eyed and I pull her back into my arms. "We should be going." We thank the lady and then Alice turns, looking up at me for a long moment. What do I say to her?

Is it fair?

No.

We walk away and for once I actually feel the weight of Alice beside me as if she's just driftwood. Getting to the car, I allow her and Bella inside first before sliding in myself. The rest of them are silent.

The car door shuts and Alice screams.

"Bella, maybe you should move away from Alice for a second," Carlisle says.

She ignores him and settles in front of Alice on the floor. "Ali, listen-"

"They remember me, of course they did. I was a stain, a _freak_ of their family. They were embarrassed by me. Even as a human, I was just a burden..." Alice turns and hits me in the chest with her fist. I rub her back, sending out more waves of calm.

"I love you," I tell her.

"We all love you, Alice." Bella reaches up and pulls back some of the spiky hair covering Ali's eyes. "Family isn't defined by blood, it's defined by the love surrounding it - and just think what would have happened if you hadn't been turned. You wouldn't have met Jazz, or any of the rest of us. You're my best friend..."

Alice giggles and Bella continues, "I told you, you have to stop thinking of humanity in terms of blood pumping through your veins, how soft or warm your skin is, and god forbid - whether or not your skin glows in the sunlight. If we all measured humanity that way then people like Hitler would be in heaven and Carlisle would be in hell."

Alice sighs, "Bella, I've killed people too -"

"There's a huge difference between psychological and physical bloodlust. Hitler killed millions because he wanted to play God, not because anyone forced his hand. You're a vampire - defying your very nature because you choose to."

"You're point is?"

_"It's our choices that show us who we truly are, far more than our abilities."_

"Did you just quote _Harry Potter_?" Emmett laughs.

"Hey, Dumbledore is a pretty smart guy if you ask me," Bella replies with a smirk, still staring at my wife.  
>"And Alice, you may be a freak but look around. Everyone here falls in that category according to the rest of society."<p>

Bella gets back up and puts her seatbelt on, and the content happiness flows from Alice, ricocheting off me and permeating around in the small space of the car. I watch as the sun begins its descent from behind the highest yellow clouds, down into the orange and red ones. Quietly, I glance back at Bella in the corner - thinking about the memory of my own human sister's face. Finally, peace comes. With Alice I have uncovered true love...but with all of them, I have found family. Something I never thought I would experience again.

It's an extraordinary feeling.

**Bella's POV**

Of course Florida by definition is the sunshine state - it figures that most of the time we would be under cover and inside. Every single Cullen has been trying to get me to step outside without feeling guilty. Admittedly, I've gone to the pool at the hotel a few times to think...and sunbathe.

I think of my dad and how much time we've lost over the year - over the past 19 years, really.

But then I think of Edward and the Cullens - if I choose them there will never be grandchildren for Charlie. No more Christmas's sitting around the dinner table. There won't be anyone to just sit with him and talk when he's just lonely or missing Renee.

I will never grow old, never experience a mid-life crisis. I will never have him walk me down the aisle at my wedding, never see him sitting in the crowd at my college graduation.

I gasp as the sun glares through my sunglasses - I'll never experience it like this again. And I'll have to attend high school...over and over...

Clearly, the silver lining of immortality is fading fast.

And where does that leave Edward anyway? What about the rest of the Cullens? I can't ask them to allow me to age. What happens when Edward has to pose as my grandson in public instead of my lover? How will he deal with my breakdowns and episodes? Do I really want to be on medication for the rest of my life?

Jasper could never come near me. And I'm not going to ask Edward for sex as a human...that would just be unfair. But do I seriously want Edward Cullen's body to go to waste?

Hell no.

What if Edward tries to kill himself when I die? He talked to me about it once...I can't have him choosing his family or me and the thought of Esme sobbing is enough to stop that thought in its tracks.

But what do I want? What do I need?

There's a scale in front of me - one holding my life, Charlie, friends...and the other holding Edward, the Cullens, a fairy tale. Either way I'll lose.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

A tear slides down my cheek - my own choice is daunting, jaded and impossible.

It's night at the Dali museum and I'm jittery. Jasper puts a hand on my shoulder to stop my humming movements. "Sit still," he chuckles.

I peer out the window and up onto the glow of the building. I'm so involved with the sight that when the door opens I jump a little. A hand offers itself out to me for balance.

Slowly I grasp it, pulling myself up and out carefully. I look up right into the face of Edward and blush as he smiles softly and lets me go, whispering, "Happy Birthday, Bella."

Esme walks beside me as we enter the museum and takes my arm in hers. "Which piece would you like to see first?"

"Well _The Persistence of Memory _is in New York so...let's see..."

Emmett suddenly charges up beside me, pulling on my arm. "Bella, you have to see this one!" He drags me off in the left direction to a long hallway and everyone follows behind. Edward laughs abruptly and murmurs something to Jasper.

"Em, this better not be some-"

We stop and he silences me with his hand over my mouth. He motions to the work in front of us.

"You've got to be kidding me, Emmett," I deadpan.

"Many men have been saved great agony because of this painting, just so you know." He huffs to himself. Only Emmett...

We're facing _The Great Masturbator._

"You know, Dali didn't have the best association with sex, Emmett. This painting isn't supposed to be happy," Edward chimes in.

"Art means something different to everyone, Edward!" Emmett snaps back and Jasper stands beside them with Alice and Rose, laughing darkly.

"So you're turned on by the thought of STD's? I'm pretty sure most people want to avoid them - but then what am I saying? You'll never get one. By all means, it's a great work - but everything reads paranoia. The ants, the locusts, the -"

"I hate you guys," Emmett sulks and Rose kisses his cheek.

Moving on, I glance at tables covered with statues and moldings - huge tower like ones sit in the middle of the floor and once in a while I glance at Edward slyly. A few times we even catch each other through various shapes and holes and glass.

Then, I see it.

_Atavistic Vestiges after the Rain._

I float over toward it, gazing in wonder at the meaning of the images before me. Apparently, this had been Ila's favorite painting and now I see why. Suddenly his breath tickles the edge of my earlobe when he asks from right beside me, "Do you like this one?"

"Yes," I breathe back.

"Why?"

I can feel the others hovering nearby and I bite my lip gently, starting to speak. "'Atavistic' means crude and vestiges are remains." I point to the white shaped rock with the hole in it - the very center of the work. "To me this is a mask - and the smaller white shape on the top of it looks sort of like a heart. It's like...you're connecting your inner feelings with your outward appearance, wondering if you'll ever be seen right or good enough to the world around you.

"There's also a blue watery substance on the ground beneath the white shapes and it makes me think of someone's face coming up out of the water - out of an ocean of pain. You connect yourself with the past and the present when you stand in the crude remains of the rain after its done pouring. The father and son standing in front are two people watching the entire process as it happens - like looking on the outside into yourself. The past is crude, it's filled with pain and it hurts but it's like you want to hold onto it because it made you part of who you are today."

I turn to Edward, looking up into his eyes.

"Even the most important people...they mess up and it burns you...but it helps you. It teaches you."

His eyes swirl and soften like metal being welded and crafted. He steps just a hair closer to me.

"Dali," I rasp, glancing back at the painting, "he's a good artist because he distorts everything - nothing is what it seems with him, yet...you can see everything when you just...decide to look."

_"Which is the one with the reddish brown hair?"_

_"No, it doesn't matter to me what you are."_

"Someone just needed to look," I murmur, trying to keep my eyes averted.

"Bella..." he sighs, and I force myself to gaze back at him. I hear the pounding of the rain on the roof and panic suddenly takes over. So I run past him and out the door.

**Edward's POV**

I dart quickly to the exit and after her.

"Don't mess this up," Jazz and Emmett both warn as I rush by.

When I swing the door open my eyes scan the area until I see her matted, wet hair flinging back and forth in the downfall. Her skin is covered in translucent light and it makes the droplets in her hair glint like sterling silver or fallen stars.

Gradually I approach her, trying to shake some of the rain from my own hair. She's shivering from the cold so I take off my jacket and carefully wrap it around her, creating a cocoon. "Thank you," she smiles, clenching her teeth together.

It's almost like seeing a ghost in front of me - for so long I tried to dance in the shadows and far enough away to where I could be worthy of her again one day.

"Why were you at my mom's grave that day?" She asks.

Running a hand through my hair, I sigh, replying, "Because I wanted to mourn the woman who gave you life. She made it possible for us to even cross paths. I honestly didn't know you were going to be there, or I would have stayed away."

A flash of hurt lights her eyes. "I wanted to see you, Edward, every day. I wanted to talk to you and tell you...well, everything. But every time I even came near you once I realized you weren't just some figment left to haunt me, I got so _angry."_

My mistakes had been our road to perdition, instead of a road to redemption...I can't blame her.

"But you were always there, even in the hospital. I wasn't always sure if it was the illness or if sometimes it was just the memory of us that delighted in torturing me, and when you came back it was like being in a heaven on fire. Though, then Emmett reminded me about how you hear voices," she giggles and I scoff, "-and Alice, telling me that you took care of Thompson. I couldn't really be mad at you then because as much as I hated to admit it I liked that you cared."

"Bella, you're my life. And...I'm an idiot. What happened a year ago, it terrified me. I figured it was my duty to protect you from everything, even myself - no matter how much it hurt."

We both fall silent and she sighs.

"It wasn't my choice, I know that now. It was supposed to be our choice...well, I even made choices that weren't even ours to make. I forced my family to leave and Alice...well...I'm shocked she's even talking to me to be honest."

_"I'm still having reservations about it!" _Alice tells me in my mind. Huh, the traitors have been listening this entire time.

"Yeah, Alice is still pissed off at me, okay?"

"Edward," Bella steps forward, "you got all the documents that Confetti couldn't."

"Yeah, I did."

"It's like you've been here the entire time and yet just out of reach - I wasn't sure if I could ever face you again."

"Bella you have every right to be angry...and I'll always wait for you."

"But why? What's in it for you? What do you want?"

"My answer is the same as it was a month ago: you. I just want you. The real question is: what do you want?"

"There are a few things." She steps up to me, her shoe tips pressed against mine. "I want The Thing back first."

"Your orange pile of-" her eyes narrow, "-your chariot awaits you at my house in Rosalie's garage. She'll be happy to have it out of there."

"You fixed it?"

"Happy Birthday," I reply gently.

"I don't wanna fight anymore. I'm tired of...what's the phrase? 'Staying away from you, Edward'?"

I grin. "Can you forgive me? Can you accept what little apologies I have left to offer for what I put you through? I'm not asking you to forget what happened between us but-"

"Edward, I forgive you."

The whisper comes so softly, I almost can't believe it was stated. Hope is starting to inflate in my chest, like a hot air balloon. I touch my nose to hers. "What do you want, Bella? What do you need? That's what I should have said that day in the woods." Our lips are millimeters apart and her breath is fanning my face.

"You. I wished for you - on my birthday-"

"Funny, I did the same thing."

"You stole my wish?"

"Bella, don't be absurd." I laugh as she swats at me. "By the way, what is it with you and the rain? You always hated anything cold and wet."

"I did, but when I was in the hospital it would rain and I would think of you. I would remember baseball games during thunderstorms and you sloshing around in the mud. And when you protected me from James and the others - your whole family, it just...it was like I was one of you. I felt safe and loved. There wasn't a day that went by where it would rain and I wouldn't think of you, of-"

There are many types of kisses in the world. Some that can be described as rough or soft as satin, or somewhere in between. But when I lean down surrounded by droplets that look more like fireflies and finally touch my lips to Bella Marie Swan's, every thought fades out. It's not something you can compare to any one thing. It's just...the smell of strawberries wafting through my nose, the taste of freesia's on her skin and down in her pores, and the knowledge that her lips feel like sunflower petals. It's the combined thought of everything utterly good on this earth.

I could get drunk off a kiss like this - the deep purr coming from my throat can attest to that fact.

And when she pulls away, I smile. "As you wish."


	28. Chapter 28

**Don't own it. Once again, this was a repost of a story I wrote in 2009. I figured some editing could do its body good. I hope those of you who read it for the first time enjoyed it, and thank you especially to those of you who came back to read it again. I treasure every pm or review that I have received. Maybe someday I will find it in me to write another Bella and Edward story, but until then...I'll be seeing you. **

28.

_"We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will." -Chuck Palahniuk. _

**Edward's POV**

On Christmas Eve, 2006, Bella Marie Swan went to the store to pick up some coffee for Charlie and her to have when they went on an ice fishing trip to Canada.

Instead, she died - due to a black truck that lost control on the ice. Go figure; I really had prolonged the inevitable. Or...at least according to the local news and the town of Forks she died. There was a tombstone placed right next to her mother's.

I'm standing in front of it right now. Funny, how we think life can be summed up in a small line of curved, grated stone. Odd, that sometimes the Happily Ever After can only take place with the greatest of sacrifices set in motion.

And once not long ago, I would have thought she was crazy for choosing the path that she did. But not now. Bella had given up everything, absolutely everything, to be with me. You could say that death had worked backwards for the both of us. I'm done thinking that she has no soul now, that I have no soul. Maybe the entire reason why I always felt that way was because I just hadn't found it yet.

And then she appeared with it, one seemingly insignificant day in Biology at Forks High School. . .the rainiest town in the continental United States.

The rainiest town. . .

We had been counting on that rain for our entire lives, letting it lead us through channels. . .and the path of stars. I'm done fating fate - I no longer want to. It had led me to her and allowed me to be reborn.

Suddenly next to me, Charlie Swan stares solemnly at both the headstones before letting out a deep sigh. He wipes a tear from his cheek and turns to me. "Well, she's in a better place now. With her mom. . .the way it should be."

I look at him seriously, I'm not about to allow Charlie to condemn himself the way I once had.

"Bella told me she always felt more comfortable around you."

He raises an eyebrow but remains quiet.

"She loved you both, but for different reasons. She used to say that you were the one she could identify with - who she felt understood her more. "

And it's true, on so many levels. . .for so many reasons. Charlie had even been the one she inherited her quiet mind from - and upon her change, she had once again shocked everyone by not revealing anything. Instead, she gained a rather interesting ability - one that Carlisle isn't sure hadn't been a direct result of her illness. She can show people their greatest fears. Though, it doesn't work on me.

I have overcome my greatest fear: the idea of losing her.

For that, I don't take Charlie for granted in the slightest.

**Bella's POV**

I watch the two most important men in my life walk away from the small mark on the ground from a tall tree branch in the woods. But the world will never know anything about that shy 19 year old girl who left the presence of her father too early.

And when I look toward the clouds as I feel the raindrops start to moisten the top of my head and shoulders, the fiery sting hits my eyes. It's not fair that I hadn't gotten to spend more time with Charlie, it's not fair that he'll be alone in that house, it's not fair that he'll spend a lifetime wondering. I had at least wanted to spare him the pain of thinking I was lost or that I killed myself after a relapse.

But as I told Edward once, life isn't fair.

Though, I learned more to that theory than most people give due. Life may not be fair, but it's also what you make of it. Charlie climbs into my trusty old truck and nods to Edward before starting it up to drive away in the late evening. Twilight, actually.

Gracefully Edward makes his way back over to me, climbing through dozens of branches that look more like hands intertwining us in a net. The moon is starting to shine bright from the edge of a cloud - lighting the small watery diamonds around us. I can't tell which is rain and which is skin because now, my skin glitters a bit too.

He doesn't say anything, merely grabbing my hand in his instead and squeezing it gently.

We hop down, taking off into the darkest part of the forest. This time I run with him instead of hanging on his back. I can hear the slosh of water and moss together below my feet and think about all the footprints left behind.

Like crude remains, they'll wash away with the rain.


End file.
